Yom Reva’ee
Wednesday
23 Sivan 5782
June 22 2022
The News on the Israeli Street
Teachers on strike . . .
All Israeli schools are closed today as the teachers have gone on strike. See yesterday’s blog as to the reasons for the strike.
The daily Corona update . . .
10,775 Israelis tested positive yesterday (out of 39,315 tested) bringing to 50,678 the number of active patients in the country.
The positive test rate was 27.41%; the coefficient of infection was 1.3%.
184 Israelis are seriously ill; 44 are critically ill—37 of these are on ventilators.
10,911 have died, [no reportage in the last 24 hours].
In short, the situation continues to devolve. New restrictions will almost certainly come if the high rate of morbidity continues.
TODAY’S BLOG
The Polls
As we start this long 4 month election campaign leading up to October 25, we are not going to bombard you dear readers with the 4-6 polls a day that will appear. Instead we will present a once-a-week summary of the major polls.
What you see below are the main polls from yesterday–primarily from the Israeli television channels:
A summary of the major polls yesterday.
What can we take away from these?
That we are in the same boat that we have been in during the last 3 years. Neither side would get 61 seats if the election were held tomorrow.
We can also take away that the right–which would naturally include Likud, National Religious, Shas, UTJ, Yamina, New Hope, and Israel Beiteinu–would win an estimated 70+ seats.
However, Yamina, New Hope, and Israel Beiteinu are all still firmly in the “Anyone but Netanyahu camp”–hence the inability of Netanyahu to muster 61 seats.
In all likelihood, these numbers will not change very much from now until October 25. What might change is the position of parties (for example, the CEO of Yamina announced yesterday that Yamina is not necessarily averse to Netanyahu). Also, if by some unbelievable turn of events the Netanyahu trials conclude and the verdicts are “innocent”, then the numbers could shift.
In any case, we have a long way to go.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.