The Central Elections Committee Thursday overwhelmingly against Arab Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi’s eligibility for running for election because of her association with terror.

The Joint Arab List, which includes Zoabi’s Balad party, will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, where Zoabi stands a good chance of a ruling in her favor.

The 27-6 vote in the committee rejected arguments by the attorney-general that banning Zoabi would be an open invitation to the Supreme Court to get involved in the political process.

Weinstein also advised against disqualifying right-wing activist Baruch Marzel, whose candidacy with the Yachad party also has been appealed to the committee, which has not yet decided on his eligibility.

The opposition to Zoabi’s candidacy by the Herzog-Livni-led “Zionist Camp” party cemented her disqualification, which also was backed by delegates from the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home), Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, Shas and Yachad parties.

Meretz and the Joint Arab List voted in favor of Zoabi.

The vote paved the way for similar action against Marzel, who later on the day also was disqualified.

Both Zoabi and Marzel, who is not a MK, have shown a proficiency for grabbing headlines. Zoabi is known for her nasty language against the IDF and right-wing Jews, and she also was onboard the Mavi Marmara boat in the flotilla led by IHH terrorists nearly six years ago to break the Israeli maritime embargo on Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Marzel has been involved in stunts such as marching with an Israeli flag in the city of Umm el-Fahm, which also serves as the headquarters for the northern branch of the radical Islamic Movement.

Marzel and Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman, along with the new Yachad party, petitioned the Election Committee to bar Zoabi from running.

The committee hearing was nothing less than a shouting match between Zoabi and hecklers, including Marzel, who jeered when she said Marzel and Lieberman “turned my nation into terrorists,” referring to her nation as “Palestinian.”

Yachad party chairman Eli Yishai shouted at Zoabi that she is a terrorist.

First of all, for those who like following the election polls, I suggest that you keep checking Jeremy’s site.

The trend seems pretty clear in all but one of the polls; the Likud is slowly pulling ahead of the oxymoron party (aka Zionist Movement) led by Isaac Herzog and Tsipi Livni.

• Midgam/Yediot Poll: Zionist Union 25, Likud 24, Bayit Yehudi 12, United Arab List 12, Yesh Atid 11
• Panels/Maariv/Jpost Poll: Likud 26, Zionist Union 22, Bayit Yehudi 13, United Arab List 12, Yesh Atid 11, UTJ 8
• Teleseker/Walla Poll: Likud 26, Zionist Union 23, Bayit Yehudi 12, United Arab List 12, Yesh Atid 10, Koolanu 8
• Maagar Mochot/Radio Poll: Likud 24, Zionist Union 24, Bayit Yehudi 14, United Arab List 12, Yesh Atid 11, Koolanu 8

Recent newscasts and the usual Leftist Israeli media have been bemoaning the failing or “non-existent” according to them, actual campaign of the Zionist Union-Labor and Tsipi. According to them, after the “swinging” announcement, much mocked by many, of the union of the veteran Labor Party and Tsipi Livni, born and raised in a noble Revisionist family, there hasn’t been much of a campaign.

One of the news shows I watched ended with the wish that maybe they, the news editors, were premature in their analysis. There was hope that future polls would show much better results for Labor-Livni.

Last week brought heralded the return of Latma, the totally fantastic satire by Caroline Glick, this time on the “big screen” of Chanel 1 TV.

It ended with a song about Tsipi and the hapless Herzog. She was the tough male figure of the pair, and he wore the wedding gown. She picked him up on her motorcycle, drove off very dangerously. They have an accident, and when the police come they point to each other as the guilty driver. And then before Herzog even realizes that he has been “had,” she’s off calling “Yair, Yair…” I agree with that as a suitable reaction of Tsipi’s the minute it’s clear that she has destroyed or seriously damaged Labor. And that’s why I call her the “political nymphomaniac.”

There’s a long time trend in the Israeli political scene which can’t be stopped, because it’s totally due to numbers. I’m talking demographics. Religious, traditional and of course chareidi families are larger than the secular ones. Official statistics also show the size of Arab families shrinking. I see that in my Arab customers, Yafiz, Sha’ar Binyamin.

For these 2015, 5775 elections, add to that the so far weak campaign from the Left, based on gimme! and ignoring security. They will have to work much, much harder if they want to win. Numbers are against them.

Shai Piron, the number 2 man in the Yesh Atid party said the party’s preference is to replace Netanyahu, and as such, given the choice would join a Herzog/Livni led coalition.

Piron said it is time for new leadership in Israel.

A new poll published by the Israeli Walla! website Thursday shows that the left and center-left parties are losing support, as is the Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party.

If elections were held today, the Likud would win 26 seats in the Knesset, compared with 23 for the Herzog-Livni “Zionist Camp” duo, according to the poll.

The most significant changes from previous polls are weakening support for Meretz and Bayit Yehudi. The left-wing Meretz party will barely win representation, apparently losing voters to Herzog-Livni, a merger of Livni’s HaTnuah party and Labor (The Zionist Union), the poll reveals. Theirs candidates are more much more leftist than before, attracting Meretz supporters but apparently putting off supports who may have flocked to Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and the new Kulanu party founded by Moshe Kahlon.

Bayit Yehudi, headed by Naftali Bennett, is losing ground. For the first time since the beginning of the campaign, the party has dropped to 12 Knesset seats, the same as in the outgoing Knesset but two to four less than in nearly all previous polls. This puts them as the same size as the Arab party, who could end up being the 3rd largest party in the Knesset.

That drop accounts for the increase in support for Likud.

The shifts in supports for Meretz and Bayit Yehudi do not change the left-right balance, but they leave the Likud in a better position.

The Walla! poll gives Yesh Atid 10 seats, one more than in most other previous polls. All other parties are more or less in the same position, except for Yisrael Beiteinu, which was granted seven seats, according to the poll. Previous surveys projected the party headed by Avigdor Lieberman would barely win enough support to enter the Knesset.

The new Yachad party headed by Eli Yishai continues to be on the edge of winning enough votes to enter the Knesset.

Yisrael Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman has announced he will sit only with a center-right coalition, virtually blowing apart the illusion promoted by the Labor-Livni party and establishment  media that it can for a coalition government

Lieberman, who has become Israel’s most widely-known if not bizarre chameleon, previously has not ruled out sitting with a coalition headed by new Labor party, which merged with the party headed by Tzipi Livni and renamed itself the “Zionist Camp.”

All pre-election polls since the start of the campaign have shown that the party, co-headed by Yitzchak Herzog and Livni, has no chance of forming a coalition without the support of Yisrael Beiteinu, based on the false assumption that Lieberman would sit with the Haredi parties.

The concept is totally ridiculous, but even that hallucination came undone with Lieberman’s announcement Sunday that “Yisrael Beiteinu never will be part of a leftist government.”

Two weeks ago, he rejected sitting with a coalition that included the left-wing Meretz party, but he finally has realized that he is not the only one who understands that many of the Herzog-Livni candidates would be very comfortable in the Mertz party.

If  the Labor-Livni slate of candidates had been a bit more normal and without the inclusion of potential Knesset Members who unabashedly favor a Palestinian Authority country based on all of its demands, perhaps Lieberman would have held his breath.

One of Labor’s top candidates for the Knesset is Stav Shaffir, who wants to get rid of HaTikvah as Israel’s national anthem because it is too Jewish for Arabs to love.

Another star in the Herzog-Livni camp is Merav Michaeli who has stated that no one should serve in the IDF because of the “occupation.”

Labor Party candidate Zuhair Bahloul maintains that his “Palestinian identity is stronger than [his] Israeli one.”

Lieberman’s party is down to four or five seats in polls, still enough for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to want to make part of the next government if the Likud takes charge after the elections in March.

Tzipi Livni, who hopes to be rotating Prime Minister with Yitzchak Herzog after the March elections, said today she doesn’t want Jerusalem to be divided, but as for whether it will happen, she “hops not.”

She made the comment in an interview with The Jerusalem Post, in which said that dividing Jerusalem would be “part of the negotiations” with the Palestinian Authority.

Theoretically, she was being very honest since no one knows what will be tomorrow, let alone two months from now.

But that kind of intellectual honesty is not exactly what voters want to hear when it comes to knowing in whose to deliver the fate of Jerusalem, and of Israel.

“I hope not” is not going to convince anyone on the left or the right of Livni’s ability to stand up for what she thinks is right, unless the correct policy is to blow with the wind out of Ramallah.

Livni and Herzog suffer from an image of lack of strength, especially when it comes to security. That is Netanyahu’s ace in the hole.

But even worse for Herzog-Livni than the “I hope jot” position is the ridiculous notion of talking about “negotiations.”

Either Livni is parroting John Jerry or she really is out of the loop.

Palestinian Authority official “negotiator” said this week that relations with Israel have reached “the point of no return.”

He could have said that three years ago.

The merged Labor party, AKA the “Zionist Camp” headed by Yitzchak Herzog and Tzipi Livni, has drafted former military intelligence chief Amos Yadlin to fill its vacuum for a future Defense Minister if it forms the next government.

Israel Radio (Voice of Israel) was quick to promote Yadlin Tuesday morning with soft-glove questions that allowed him to show off his knowledge.

He divulged the astounding opinion that anyone who wants to kill Israelis should be killed first, apparently a revolutionary concept for Israel Radio, which has a blatant leftist agenda even though it is supposed to be non-political.