(Via Yossi Verter-Haaretz).On March 31, Netanyahu's government will have been in office for two years. What do we have in our inventory from those two years? One important speech, at Bar-Ilan University. One construction moratorium in the territories. A failed attempt to jump-start diplomatic negotiations. Lots of slipups and issues related to conduct, plus a problematic bureau. We didn't have a war, thank God. Hardly any terror attacks, until these last two weeks. We didn't have Grad missiles in Be'er Sheva and dozens of Qassams every day in the area of the Gaza envelope. Until this past week.
According to the Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted this week, under the supervision of Prof. Camil Fuchs of the Tel Aviv University statistics department, this is a government that is neither hated nor loved.
According to this week's poll, if elections were held today, Netanyahu would not have difficulty forming a new government, either with the right-wing-ultra-Orthodox bloc that still has the highest number of Knesset seats, or with Kadima and Labor. According to the survey, the right-wing bloc would garner 68 seats today, three more than in the current Knesset. The center-left bloc would lose three seats relative to its situation today - it would have only 52 seats, 10 belonging to the Arab factions.
The current poll gives each of the parties Likud and Kadima 31 seats; both gain support relative to their size today. Kadima chair Tzipi Livni is also narrowing the gap with Netanyahu when it comes to suitability for being prime minister: He gets 44 percent support, she gets 35 percent, a gap of 9 percent. Two months ago, the gap between them was 17 percent: 48 percent for Netanyahu verses 31 percent for Livni.
In this poll he falls below the level of 50-percent support,Only 39 percent are satisfied with him, but a overall 67% express satisfaction today with his functioning as PM in the past 2 years
The poll also examined the status of the 10 cabinet ministers who by virtue of their positions have responsibility for the main areas of national life. Overall, the public gives positive grades to most of them. Here are the results, in descending order, reflecting the respondents' satisfaction with how well they function: In first place is Communications Minister Moshe Kahlon, with 58 percent, and after him comes Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar, with 51 percent - they are the only ones who crossed the 50-percent threshold. Following them are Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, 48 percent; Environmental Protection Minister Gilad Erdan, 46 percent; Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz; and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, at 41 percent - a considerable improvement in his status during the past two years. Following them are Netanyahu and his Interior Minister Eli Yishai, with 39 percent each; Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz, 38 percent; and Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Atias, 37 percent.
And in last place on the list - guess who? Defense Minister Ehud Barak, "Mr. Security." Only 30 percent of the respondents express satisfaction today with his functioning.
