A poll conducted for Channel 12's "Meet the Press" program shows that most Israelis want Blue and White leader MK Benny Gantz to succeed in forming a government in the time remaining to him, and the highest percentage of support is for a government with Likud, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and the haredi parties.
Some 54% of respondents answered that they want Gantz to succeed in forming a government in the time allotted to him, while 30.2% didn't want to form a government, and 15% - about an eighth of the public - answered that they don't know.
This was a "Peace Index" poll conducted by Prof. Effi Yaar and Dr. Nimrod Rosler of Tel Aviv University and the "Midgam" institute led by Manu Geva, in which 600 people responded.
When asked which government they wanted Gantz to form, the votes were split among the many options. A full 29.1% - the highest figure - support a government with the Likud, headed by Netanyahu and including the haredim. Another 20.3% support a government with the Likud without Netanyahu, and without the haredim, while 19% are in favor of a government with the center-left and Yisrael Beytenu, supported from the outside by the Joint Arab List, and 17.9% - a government with the Likud and Netanyahu, but without the haredim. Only 3.2% support a government with the Likud without Netanyahu and with haredim, and 10.5% responded "other."
The respondents were also asked: "If there is a third round of elections, will you vote for the party for which you voted in the last election or a different party?" Over two-thirds of respondents - 67.9% - said they would vote for the same party, 6.6% said they would vote for another party in the same bloc, and 2.4% said they would move to the opposite bloc. Another 12.1% said they would not vote if there was a third election within a year and 11.1% answered that they don't know.
When asked about the Israeli-Palestinian Authority conflict, 60.9% said they were in favor of peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, while 31.7% objected and 7.4% responded that they didn't know. However, when asked whether they support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside the State of Israel, a majority was opposed - 48.7% versus 43.8%. The other 7.4% answered that they don't know.