Love for Labor is Not Lost

An overwhelming majority of Israelis is critical of the way the government is dealing with the Lebanon problem and smaller but nevertheless significant majorities believe the Labor Party is more capable than Likud of dealing with Israel’s economic and security problems, according to a public opinion poll published in Maariv today.

The poll, the first of its kind since the Knesset voted for early elections–to be held July 23 — was conducted by the Modi’in Ezrachi organization. It found that 34.4 percent of the respondents thought Labor better able to handle the economy against 16.9 percent who favored Likud. On the question of defense, Labor edged Likud by 36.7-33 percent.

A full 70 percent of the respondents indicated various degrees of dissatisfaction with the government’s policies on Lebanon, ranging from “not so good” (32.5 percent) to “not good in general” (37.5 percent). Of the 25.9 percent more or less supportive of the government, 4.5 percent thought it was doing “very well” on Lebanon and 21.4 percent “fairly well.”

But 71.7 percent of the respondents favored the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. This was broken down to 31.3 percent for immediate total withdrawal and 40.4 percent for a partial withdrawal to begin immediately.

Only 13.7 percent believed the Israel Defense Force should remain in Lebanon for the time being. Of that group, 2.1 percent believed the IDF should re-occupy those parts of Lebanon from which it withdrew last year.

Meanwhile, the results of yesterday’s Student Union elections at Tel Aviv University was being hailed by Laborites as a harbinger of victory in the July Knesset elections and played down by Likud as unrepresentative of national sentiment.

The “alternative” slate composed of Labor and leftwing parties increased its representation from 45 to 49 seats in the 67-member Student Council while Likud dropped from 22 to 18 seats.