Eisenkot pulls clear at 26 seats as half of Israelis expect the loser to reject the result

The freshest survey before the 27 October vote for the 26th Knesset was conducted 19–20 August by Lazar Research under Dr. Menachem Lazar, using the Panel4All online panel, with a sample of 3,916, and published around 21 August in Maariv. It gives Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar 26 seats with Likud support falling, and puts the opposition bloc at 60 — one short of a majority. That is the third reading in a row at 60: Midgam for Channel 12 on 3–4 August had Likud and Eisenkot tied at 23 apiece with the bloc at 60, and Channel 12 on 10–11 August had Likud 22, Eisenkot 24, bloc 60. Haaretz noted on 19 August that Likud is “stuck in the low twenties in projected Knesset seats, a far cry from the 32 seats it won in 2022.” The same Maariv poll found 50% of respondents fear the losing side will refuse to accept the result, 38% do not, and 12% do not know.

The counter-reading comes from i24NEWS, whose poll by Direct Polls Ltd. — the firm headed by Tzuriel Sharon and associated with Channel 14, with a documented pro-coalition lean — gives the coalition 58, the opposition 49 and the Arab parties 13, the mirror image of every other published series. On Saturday, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, now leading B’Yachad, told Channel 12 that Netanyahu is an “anarchist” whose campaigning could put Eisenkot in physical danger before polling day; the Times of Israel logged the item at 11:14pm. The same liveblog carries a one-line entry reading “Report: Shin Bet denies Eisenkot’s request for armed security detail” — the originating outlet, the Shin Bet’s response and the basis for any refusal are all unestablished. Eisenkot, meanwhile, said a Palestinian state does not currently exist and would not be established during his term, answering Ra’am’s Mansour Abbas.

Assessment: The honest way to chart this race is the spread, not an average: three pollsters converge on a 60-seat opposition bloc and one, the coalition’s house firm, inverts it. Watch which number Channel 14 and Channel 12 each put on screen this week — that choice is now itself campaign material. The Shin Bet detail line is a claim about a claim and should carry no weight until an outlet owns it, but if it holds it is the most consequential item in the file, because it converts Bennett’s rhetoric into an administrative fact. And it explains why Katz answered Barrack by attacking the opposition: with Likud in the low twenties, the security portfolio is the only asset the coalition is not losing.