The Likud election committee has ruled in favor of Knesset Member Tzipi Hotovely after a recount of votes in the party primaries elections and decided she won the 20th spot on the Likud list of candidates.

The decision means that former Likud MK and Cabinet minister Avi Dichter is bumped back to the 26th place because the spots in between are reserved for sectorial candidates.

Dichter is not expected to surrender so quickly and probably will appeal to the District Court if the Likud does not re-consider and decide in his favor. He claimed that there are strong suspicions of foul play in the counting of the votes.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu still has the option of choosing Dichter to fill one of the reserved places farther up in the list, a move that would prevent another recount and possibly an even more embarrassing situation.

Hotovely said after the Likud elections committee decision, “I congratulate the committee to do justice for the voters and correct the mishaps that occurred during the election process. I have no doubt that most of the defects in the counting of the votes were a result of human error….

“During my appeal, I emphasized that there is no personal quarrel between me and Dichter, and I am sure he also will be a part of the next Knesset.”

Her victory is likely to boost the Liquid’s appeal among right-wing Likud supporters who are drifting towards the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party.

Eli Yishai has asked Moshe Hager, a prominent figure in Judea and Samaria and among Army Reservists, to run on his Yachad (Together) party. Hager told The Jewish Press Monday he has not yet decided whether to enter politics.

Pre-election polls so far have left Yishai’s party on the borderline of winning the minimum number of votes necessary for a party to enter the Knesset.

Hagar is a Colonel in the Reserves and founded the first “mechina” religious pre-army Torah Academy in 1991 in Beit Yatir, located on the southern edge of Judea and Samaria, northeast of Be’er Sheva. He also is a nephew of former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Hager-Lau.

Yishai’s choice of Hagar indicates he is not interested in Michael Ben-Ari, who heads his own Otzma party that has no chance of succeeding in the elections.

Unlike Ben-Ari, noted for provocative gimmicks to embarrass leftists, Hagar has an image of moderation and co-existence with those of different opinions although he is strongly rightwing.

A descendant of the Vishnitz dynasty, his running with Yishai might attract more Ashkenazi voters as well as thousands of Israelis who have learned in his mechina and served under his command in active and reserve duty.

When Hager took a leave of absence several years ago, he was replaced by Rabbi Avichai Ronski, who now is candidate on the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) list of candidates.

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.

The merged party that brought together Labor and Tzipi Livni under the banner of the “Zionist Camp” has talked with Arab Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi about a possible coalition government.

The fact that Labor party chairman Yitzchak Herzog would even agree to talk with an anti-Zionist Arab MKs such as Tibi is only another page in Herzog-Livni’s new book to prove once again that “you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

It is not clear whether Herzog approached Arab political leaders or vice-versa, but both sides agree there were talks on the possibility of Arab parties breaking the taboo against joining a Jewish-dominated coalition in the Knesset.

Channel 10 reported that it was Herzog who took the initiative, and he confirmed there were contacts but insisted that it was MK Tibi who approached him.

Remember, Herzog and Livni merged their two parties under the clever slogan of the “Zionist Camp,” just in case anything thinks that expelling hundreds of thousands of Jews from Judea and Samira is not Zionistic.

The theory is that it is better for Jews to be a majority in “Auschwitz Borders,” as termed by former Labor party official and Ambassador to the United Nations Abba Eban, than to be “surrounded by Arabs.” By the way, this is exactly the situation of the Jews in Netanya and Hadera, except that they are not surrounded by Arabs on all sides because they have the Mediterranean Sea to protect them on the west.

And who is Ahmed Tibi, with whom Herzog talked about a future coalition with the “Zionist Camp”?

He was elected to the Knesset in 1999 after serving as an adviser to Yasser Arafat. As a Knesset Member, he supported terror under the euphemism of the “intifada.”

Tibi opposes Israel being a Jewish state, which he calls “racist.”

He backs abolishing the Law of Return that allows Jews all over the world to move to Israel as citizens, but he backs the so-called Arab “right of return” for third, fourth fifth and six-generation Arabs living in foreign countries but classified as “refugees” by the United Nations because their great-great-great–great grandparents lived in Israel once upon a time.

Tibi wants to ban the HaTikvah national anthem and the blue and white Jewish flag bearing the Star of David.

In a radio interview last July where he refused to use the word ‘terrorists’ regarding the murderers of three yeshiva youth,  Naftali Fraenkel, Gilad Sha’ar and Eyal Yifrah. Tibi blamed “the government of Israel, Naftali Bennett and the rabbis who incited to murder Palestinians” for the revenge killing of Mohammed Abu Khder.

Herzog can breathe a sigh of relief that Tibi rejected the idea of joining a Siamese twin coalition headed by Herzog and Livni.

However, if the “Zionist Camp” forms the next coalition, Tibi said it might get the support of Arab MKs in critical votes in exchange for more funds for the Arab sector.

This is hands down the best election commercial I’ve seen so far.

Netanyahu is a kindergarten school teacher with an unruly class made up of his former coalition partners.

Of course, you can always look at it as saying that Netanyahu is unable to control the class, and it’s his fault.

Either way, its definitely an original ad.

The weekend’s election poll by Walla shows the following results:

Labor (Herzog/Livni): 26
Likud (Netanyahu): 24
Bayit Yehudi (Bennett): 18
Arab Party: 11
Yesh Atid (Lapid): 8
Kulanu (Kachlon): 8
UTJ (Gafni/Litzman): 8
Shas (Deri): 8
Yisrael Beiteinu (Liberman): 5
Meretz (Gal-on): 5

Four pre-election polls published Thursday night and Friday morning show varying results, but two of them reveal that the popularity of Labor-Livni has grown by a solitary seat in the Knesset. Nevertheless, Israel’s establishment media are reporting the trivial news as if there is a rush of support for the left.

Polls are not  meaningless, but when a party registers one seat more or one less from week to week, it is virtually insignificant, numerically as well as statistically when taking into account the margin of error in small samples.

That has not stopped Israel Radio, known by the misnomer in English as the Voice of Israel, from promoting the results of this week’s poll as a victory for the “Zionist camp,” a label now claimed by everyone except for Neturei Karta.

Similarly,  three television polls show that the lead party is the “Zionist camp,” whose list of candidates likely to be elected includes those who want to turn over all of Judea and Samaria as well as half of Jerusalem to the Palestinian Authority, which has said that no Jew will be allowed to live there.

The same poll trumpeted by Israel radio also shows that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has a 4 percentage lead over Labor party leaders Yitzchak Herzog and Tzipi Livni when voters are faced with the question of who should be Prime Minister. However, Rafi Smith, who carried out the poll, said this is insignificant because of the margin of error, which apparently does not apply to results in favor of the left.

But that was the secondary headline.

The big news, according to Israel Radio, is that Herzog-Livni is now leading the Likud party by two seats instead of one.

The gap is 2, 4 and 1 in three polls on television channels 2, 10 and 1.

More significant is that Herzog-Livni still have no chance to form a coalition government without an ungodly collection of Meretz and Yisrael Beiteinu or Yisrael Beiteinu and Haredi parties.

After adding up all the numbers, the picture has not changed from last week or even last month: There are two camps: the anti-Netanyahu parties of Labor-Livni, Meretz and Yesh Atid, headed by Yair Lapid; and the pro-Netanyahu camp of the Likud and the Jewish Home, which according to all polls is holding stable with 16-17 mandates.

The most significant changes in the numbers relate to Yisrael Beiteinu, which has been in a clear trend of a decline in the past month. The four polls give the party 5, 6 and 7 seats, far less than when the current Knesset was dissolved.

After taking into account small differences in poll results for the other parties, Kulanu, headed by Moshe Kahlon, Yesh Atid, Meretz and Shas are not moving up or down significantly.

Eli Yishai, who split from Shas and formed his own party, still is on the borderline of being shut out of the Knesset.

There are other very significant indications: If Labor-Livni picks up any more seats, it will be at the expense of Meretz or Yesh Atid, and vice-versa. If Kulanu attracts more voters, they likely will move over from Yesh Atid, Yisrael Beiteinu and possibly the Likud.

There still are two months left before voters go to the polls, and Israel Radio and most of the television channels will try to convince voters that Herzog and Livni have the best chance to win.

If the combined party comes out on top, President Reuven Rivlin will have little choice but to give it the first crack at forming a government, which brings back to mind the elections five years ago.