Post #5729

📰 Bennett and Lapid’s Merger Already Looks Like a Leak, Not a Wave The first post-merger polls do not show a breakthrough. They show a reshuffle inside the anti-Netanyahu camp, with “Together” landing below the combined pre-merger numbers and the whole opposition bloc still stuck short of a governing majority. That is the problem in one line: the merger changes the packaging, not the math. Walla’s poll gives the Bennett–Lapid list 27 seats and the anti-Netanyahu bloc 59, while a separate 14 Channel survey is even harsher, putting Likud ahead and the new joint list far behind. So the immediate effect is not momentum, but cannibalization. Bennett and Lapid may have united their brands, but the polling suggests they are still fighting over the same voters while Eisenkot siphons off the “right, but not Bibi” lane and the left loses some of its oxygen too. Likud, meanwhile, barely needs to move. The right can simply watch the opposition split itself into overlapping products, then point at the numbers and say the post-Netanyahu fantasy is already collapsing under its own branding. That is why the poll matters beyond the seat count. It suggests the merger may weaken the anti-Bibi bloc’s ability to build a stable majority, even as it makes Bennett the face of the new project and gives Netanyahu another argument that his rivals cannot even add themselves correctly. #Israel#Bennett#Lapid#Netanyahu#polls#elections 📱American Оbserver - Stay up to date on all important events 🇺🇸