The opinion polls, which have remained relatively stable for months—at least on the choice between the pro-Bibi and the anti-Bibi Zionist bloc—have recently become wildly erratic, with sharp swings and idiosyncratic shifts in the past week or so.

The anti-Bibi Zionist bloc, hovering near 60 seats for almost a year, fell to 53 in a Channel 13 poll on Wednesday. Bennett and Lapid’s Together rebounded to 18 in a Channel 16 poll, one short of Likud. In yet another poll, Zionist Home (Yoaz Hendel, Chili Tropper) crossed the electoral threshold – its first time to do so in more than 20 consecutive polls.

But it is the political merger of Bezalel Smotrich’s National Religious Party and Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut that may have tipped the electoral balance. Whether through backroom machinations, carrot-and-stick tactics, threats, or enticements, Netanyahu’s fingerprints are all over the deal.

Admittedly, we have only a handful of post-merger polls. But the early signs are striking: the arrival of Ofer Winters’ Amcha Yisrael, alongside the NRP-Feiglin merger, appears to have shifted two or three seats and dramatically narrowed the Zionist opposition bloc’s lead. The new merged party is averaging five and a half seats in the latest polls, having failed to cross the threshold in half of the ten polls conducted before the merger.

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