JERUSALEM: The popularity of Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s Labour party has shot up on the back of Israel’s deadly blitz on Hamas in Gaza, according to an opinion poll published yesterday.
The center-left party would get 16 seats in the Knesset if an election were held today — compared with as low as seven seats that some surveys gave it in November, said the poll published in the Maariv daily.
The party currently has 19 MPs in the 120-seat Parliament.
Forty-four percent of people questioned said they had a “more positive opinion” of Barak, against 48 percent who have not changed their opinion and 2.5 percent who had a more negative opinion of the former premier.
The centrist Kadima party that is currently heading the Israeli government has also inched up in popularity — it is currently tied with the right-wing opposition Likud at 28 seats each, according to the poll.
In polls that preceded the bombardment, Kadima was generally a handful of seats behind the Likud.
Israel’s deadly “Operation Cast Lead,” unleashed against Hamas on Saturday is enjoying massive support among Jewish Israelis, the poll found.
Some 95 percent of Jews among those questioned for the poll support the offensive — one of Israel’s deadliest in Gaza in decades — with 80 percent backing the bombardment without reserve.
The poll was carried out by the Teleseker institute among a sample of 800 Israelis, both Arab and Jewish. The pollsters gave a margin of error of two percent. Other polls published this week found that 81 percent of Israelis supported the war in Gaza.
