“Only God knows how (Likud politician) Gideon Sa'ar manages to maintain his special status in the political center and among Tel-Aviv residents, despite his right-wing ideology and his continuous move towards religion and the rabbis, but it’s a fact.”
—Maariv political commentator Ben Caspit writes about the results of the Maariv poll, which showed that 38% of all Israelis support Gideon Saar as a replacement for Binyamin Netanyahu as prime minister - more than anyone else. Moshe Kahlon came in second with 32%. Among right-wing voters, Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett came in first, with 42% and Saar followed with 41%.

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News Summary:
Today’s Hebrew papers mainly focused on embattled Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is under investigation, along with his wife and confidantes. Maariv reported that the Likud party is trying to get rid of 12,000 members who oppose Netanyahu’s continued reign, Yedioth reported that while the opposition slammed Netanyahu’s ‘coup speech,’ for claiming that the law enforcement agencies of Israel are out to get him, the Likud party thinks it was helpful to the party and it plans to make a weekly show of force by demonstrating across from those who demonstrate weekly outside the home of Attorney General, the latter accusing him of dragging feet in the corruption cases. However, a Channel 2 News poll showed that only 15% believed that the ‘coup speech’ strengthened their belief in Netanyahu. Some 72% of the public believe Netanyahu must be investigated and only 15% think that investigations should be postponed until he is no longer serving in office. Some 48% of the public said they did not agree with Netanyahu’s claims that the media is trying to topple him and the right-wing government, while 42% did believe the claims. According to a KAN TV poll, 67% of the public don’t believe Netanyahu’s claims of innocence and 69% believe he should resign. A Maariv poll found that if elections were held today, the Likud party would lose five mandates.