Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party experienced a slight dip in the polls following last week’s American announcement of a ceasefire in the war with Iran, owing to the perception that many of the war’s stated goals had not been met. But other members of his hard-right coalition have seen more dramatic changes to their electoral prospects.

According to a poll released by national broadcaster Kan last Thursday, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party rose significantly to a projected 10 seats, up from its current six.

At the same time, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, which ran on a joint list with Otzma Yehudit in the last election and which currently holds seven of the Knesset’s 120 seats, again failed to pass the electoral threshold — as it has consistently in most polls for some time now.

Why is one of Netanyahu’s far-right allies surging in the polls, while another has dropped so precipitously?

“Ben Gvir is hardcore, and today everyone wants hardcore,” pollster Mitchell Barak of Keevoon Research Strategy & Communications told The Times of Israel, explaining that Ben Gvir’s harsh rhetoric appeals to young voters on the right much more than the more restrained Smotrich.

As police minister, Ben Gvir may not have much to show in the way of substantive achievements, with violent crime on the rise and accusations that he engages in populist rather than substantive measures. But his voter base may care less about competence than his opposition to the so-called “deep state,” a conspiracy theory spread by coalition members claiming that an unelected cabal of officials is exercising illegitimate state power and is out to thwart them, Barak said.

According to Dahlia Scheindlin, a political analyst and Haaretz columnist, while the specific political dynamic explaining Ben Gvir’s rise and Smotrich’s fall remains less than fully clear, hard-right religious voters are “a limited........

© The Times of Israel