A few weeks ago, I received a call from Midgam, a leading Israeli commercial polling and market-research firm. The woman on the line requested that I participate in a survey.
The topic turned out to be “settler violence,” though she didn’t introduce it that way. You know, so that I wouldn’t hang up on her.
Within seconds, it became obvious that the conclusion was baked into the questions, all of which were based on the premise that the issue is an undisputable, widespread phenomenon. Each was reminiscent of the famous loaded query, “When did you stop beating your wife?”
When I posited this to the interviewer, she laughed uncomfortably, then argued that she wasn’t responsible for the methodology or formulation. I assured her I was aware that its architect was Midgam CEO Mano Geva, Channel 12’s go-to pollster, who appears regularly on its panels.
This brings us to Israel’s upcoming legislative elections, scheduled for Oct. 27. With the 25th Knesset formally having dissolved itself on July 17, campaigns have kicked into high gear, as has the proliferation of polls.
Despite the fact that it’s still unclear how many parties will be running, a growing consensus has taken hold among political commentators who’ve been relying solely on Midgam and the companies used by Kan 11 (the Kantar Institute) and Channel 13, which draws on a consortium of companies.
According to the assessments of all of the above, the right is tanking; the opposition is soaring; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in for a humiliating defeat, and in the event of an impasse—in which neither bloc succeeds in reaching the necessary 61-mandate majority in the 120-seat Knesset—the “anybody but Bibi” camp can always turn to the Arab party, Ra’am, a Muslim Brotherhood affiliate headed by Mansour Abbas.
The latter seems like a possibility, since it’s what the Naftali Bennett-Yair Lapid merger did in 2021. The move enabled Bennett’s stunt of forging a coalition and becoming prime minister with a measly seven seats, lowered to six when MK Amichai Chikli (currently minister of Diaspora affairs) resigned in disgust.
Meanwhile, however, polls conducted for i24News and Channel 14 paint a very different picture—one in which the right-wing bloc is capable of winning 61 seats or more and easily forming a government.
The discrepancy could be chalked up to different sampling and statistical models. i24News uses Direct Polls, led by Tzuriel Sharon. Channel 14 leans on Next Data, a firm established by the station’s owners, whose main analyst is Direct Polls founder Shlomo Filber.
Critics accuse those two polling companies of being nothing more than “propaganda” tools for Netanyahu and his base—unlike the others, talked about as though they’re scientific in nature and therefore more trustworthy. Talk about chutzpah.
In the first place, the privately owned Channel 14 identifies as a right-wing outlet. It doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t. Viewers know and appreciate its perspective.
The other networks, in contrast, are on the left, yet insist that they’re neutral arbiters, “objective journalists” in search of truth. The ruse would be hilarious if it weren’t so outright disingenuous.
The discrediting of Filber, a former official in Netanyahu’s Likud Party, is particularly unnerving. It was he, after all, whose predictions ahead of the 2022 elections came closest to the actual results. Nevertheless, whenever I cite his findings as pushback, my interlocutors dismiss them with disdain.
Too bad the naysayers don’t bother listening to Filber describe the process behind his projections.
“I sit for hours and days ... on data, spreadsheets and models,” he told Galei Israel Radio on July 21. “I’m constantly looking for where the error is, where the glitch is and where I might be missing something. And I have others check, as well.”
He went on: “Sorry, but so far, I haven’t found any anomaly. My estimate is that the right will get 61 seats or more. There’s even a scenario where, if a secular right-center party forms and joins the bloc, we could reach 67, 68 or even 70 seats.”
Finally, he added, “There are four to eight seats’ worth of voters who say, ‘I want Netanyahu as prime minister, but I’m looking for a different political home.’ That’s the game-changer of the upcoming election.”
He could be wrong, of course. Even the most careful polls are mere snapshots of public sentiment at a particular moment. They’re built on a relatively small number of respondents, some of whom lie or change their minds.
Nor can such surveys capture last-minute shifts, strategies or events that occur close to election day. This is particularly significant in a multi-party system like Israel’s, with small or new parties fighting to cross the electoral threshold, and where a fluctuation of a few tenths of a percentage point can completely alter the coalition math.
So, all polls should be approached with caution and taken with a grain of cynicism, especially those presented as some kind of gold standard—as long as they show a victory for the left.
Since I witnessed first-hand the way Midgam tried to extract desired data where Israeli attitudes toward “settler violence” are concerned, my confidence in its ballot-box forecast is next to nil.
