The Herzog-Livni party, billed as the “Zionist Camp,” and the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party headed by Naftali Bennett would be the two largest parties in Israel if university and college students were voting, according to a poll published by Globes.
The Likud party came in a distant third place, winning only 16 of 120 Knesset seats in a poll of nearly 2,600 students.
The Herzog-Livni combo won 30 seats, and Bennett’s party was only four seats behind.
Bennett topped the list on the question of trust, while Herzog was favored when it comes to social issues, housing and future employment, which are of the utmost concern to students.
Herzog and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu were even-Stephen in the poll that asked who is best suited to be Prime Minister.
Political leaders should pay serious attention to the results because they show that those who soon will be in the forefront of society are tired of slogans, talk and lack of change in a social and political system that is overweight, tired and self-fulfilling.
The lists of candidates of the Jewish Home party and the in the merged Labor-Livni party, even if it is called the “Zionist Camp,” are clearly left-wing and right-wing.
The Likud, under Netanyahu, has tried so hard to be so centrist that it has no clear direction.
Israel’s establishment launched the election campaign by trying to convince the public that Labor-Livni is not leftwing but is a centrist party.
The Labor party primaries killed that hoax with the election of bona fide leftists, including one who wants to divide Jerusalem, to spots that guarantee them a seat in the next Knesset.
Similar, voters in the Jewish Home party made it look like a resurrection of the old National Religious Party, except for the spectacular victory of secularist Ayelet Shaked.
Bennett can make the list a bit more secular but even stronger as a right-wing faction if he exercises his option of choosing a candidate for a top spot and nominates Dani Dayan, a spokesman for Judea and Samaria but not religious.