.Happy with wartime leaders _ and Netanyahu, too
JERUSALEM (AP) - With a general election less than three weeks away, Israel's bruising offensive against the Gaza Strip's Hamas rulers has revived the flagging approval ratings of the country's wartime leaders.
But polls suggest it might not be enough to deny the premiership to their main rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish former prime minister who opposes his government's U.S.-backed peace talks with the Palestinians.
Whoever wins will have to put together a coalition government and wide splits in Israeli society will mean another badly fragmented parliament that could doom the new regime to a short life.
February's election will be Israel's fifth in a decade. The constant political turmoil has interfered with attempts to move Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts along, as Israel frequently does not have a strong enough government to make significant moves.
Polls show Defense Minister Ehud Barak, head of the center-left Labor Party gained the most from the Gaza offensive. In a Jan. 14 poll, Barak's personal approval rating climbed to an all-time high of 70 percent, up from 53 percent two weeks earlier, pollster Camil Fuchs said.
The head of the governing Kadima Party, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, scored a 51 percent approval rating, up from 47 percent. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also rose in the public's estimation, to 46 percent from 14 percent a few months ago and 33 percent in the previous poll, Fuchs said. Olmert turned in his resignation in September because of burgeoning corruption investigations.
The Israeli public firmly backed the 22-day war, mounted to halt years of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel from Gaza. Israeli casualties were relatively low, at 13, compared with some 1,300 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza health officials.
Israelis vote for parties, not for candidates. Seats in the parliament are divided among the parties in proportion to the votes they get, and the leader of the largest party is chosen to form a new government.
The perceived successes of the offensive have not diminished the popularity of Netanyahu's Likud Party, surveys show. A poll Fuchs conducted immediately after Israel ceased fire on Sunday put Likud as front-runner with 29 of parliament's 120 seats.
Kadima, led by Livni, Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, would win 26. Labor would get 14, up from as few as six before the war but not nearly enough to let Barak reclaim the premiership he briefly held a decade ago.
More important, Israel's bloc of hawkish parties polled stronger than dovish parties - just as it did before the war - winning 64 seats. That would be enough to crown Netanyahu premier as head of a hardline coalition government.
The poll conducted for the Dialog company surveyed 560 people and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
A separate survey by the New Wave polling company, published Thursday, gave Likud 35 seats, a gain of two from it's last poll on Jan. 7. Kadima had 25, down two, and Labor was unchanged at 15. The hawkish bloc accounted for 65 seats. Pollsters questioned 623 people and the margin of error was 3.9 percentage points.
Conflicting emotions about the war could explain why there was no shift on the hawk-dove divide, said political science Professor Avraham Diskin of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Many Israelis were disappointed that their government halted the onslaught before receiving assurances the rocket fire and arms smuggling into Hamas-ruled Gaza would stop.
"People overwhelmingly supported the war but at the same time there is a sense among the public of a mission not completed and these two things pull in opposite directions," he said.
A separate Fuchs poll taken Sunday buttressed political analyst Efraim Inbar's claim that most Israelis "see a big missed opportunity."
On Sunday, after the cease-fire was declared, 41 percent of those surveyed said they thought the war had failed - equal to the number of those who said it had succeeded.
Three days earlier, Fuchs said, 78 percent of respondents thought the offensive was successful.
Netanyahu had long attacked the government for not crushing Gaza militants. But analysts said he played a smart hand by lining up behind the government during the offensive and defending it in interviews against international criticism of the steep Palestinian death toll.
"He was perceived as a very statesmanlike figure," said Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
Now that campaigning can begin in earnest, Netanyahu might be able to woo voters disillusioned with the cease-fire, Inbar said.
MyWay
But polls suggest it might not be enough to deny the premiership to their main rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, the hawkish former prime minister who opposes his government's U.S.-backed peace talks with the Palestinians.
Whoever wins will have to put together a coalition government and wide splits in Israeli society will mean another badly fragmented parliament that could doom the new regime to a short life.
February's election will be Israel's fifth in a decade. The constant political turmoil has interfered with attempts to move Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts along, as Israel frequently does not have a strong enough government to make significant moves.
Polls show Defense Minister Ehud Barak, head of the center-left Labor Party gained the most from the Gaza offensive. In a Jan. 14 poll, Barak's personal approval rating climbed to an all-time high of 70 percent, up from 53 percent two weeks earlier, pollster Camil Fuchs said.
The head of the governing Kadima Party, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, scored a 51 percent approval rating, up from 47 percent. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also rose in the public's estimation, to 46 percent from 14 percent a few months ago and 33 percent in the previous poll, Fuchs said. Olmert turned in his resignation in September because of burgeoning corruption investigations.
The Israeli public firmly backed the 22-day war, mounted to halt years of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel from Gaza. Israeli casualties were relatively low, at 13, compared with some 1,300 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza health officials.
Israelis vote for parties, not for candidates. Seats in the parliament are divided among the parties in proportion to the votes they get, and the leader of the largest party is chosen to form a new government.
The perceived successes of the offensive have not diminished the popularity of Netanyahu's Likud Party, surveys show. A poll Fuchs conducted immediately after Israel ceased fire on Sunday put Likud as front-runner with 29 of parliament's 120 seats.
Kadima, led by Livni, Israel's chief negotiator with the Palestinians, would win 26. Labor would get 14, up from as few as six before the war but not nearly enough to let Barak reclaim the premiership he briefly held a decade ago.
More important, Israel's bloc of hawkish parties polled stronger than dovish parties - just as it did before the war - winning 64 seats. That would be enough to crown Netanyahu premier as head of a hardline coalition government.
The poll conducted for the Dialog company surveyed 560 people and had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
A separate survey by the New Wave polling company, published Thursday, gave Likud 35 seats, a gain of two from it's last poll on Jan. 7. Kadima had 25, down two, and Labor was unchanged at 15. The hawkish bloc accounted for 65 seats. Pollsters questioned 623 people and the margin of error was 3.9 percentage points.
Conflicting emotions about the war could explain why there was no shift on the hawk-dove divide, said political science Professor Avraham Diskin of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Many Israelis were disappointed that their government halted the onslaught before receiving assurances the rocket fire and arms smuggling into Hamas-ruled Gaza would stop.
"People overwhelmingly supported the war but at the same time there is a sense among the public of a mission not completed and these two things pull in opposite directions," he said.
A separate Fuchs poll taken Sunday buttressed political analyst Efraim Inbar's claim that most Israelis "see a big missed opportunity."
On Sunday, after the cease-fire was declared, 41 percent of those surveyed said they thought the war had failed - equal to the number of those who said it had succeeded.
Three days earlier, Fuchs said, 78 percent of respondents thought the offensive was successful.
Netanyahu had long attacked the government for not crushing Gaza militants. But analysts said he played a smart hand by lining up behind the government during the offensive and defending it in interviews against international criticism of the steep Palestinian death toll.
"He was perceived as a very statesmanlike figure," said Inbar, director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
Now that campaigning can begin in earnest, Netanyahu might be able to woo voters disillusioned with the cease-fire, Inbar said.
MyWay
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