A plurality of Israelis consider Ehud Olmert their worst-ever prime minister.
A poll published by Maariv on Thursday found that 39.4 percent of Israelis think Olmert is the worst prime minister in the country’s history. Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu finished a distant second and third in the ranking with 19.3 percent and 18 percent of votes, respectively.
Asked to name Israel’s best prime minister, 26.8 percent of respondents said Menachem Begin and 25.6 percent said David Ben-Gurion.
Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon, who arguably spearheaded the most dynamic Israeli diplomacy in recent years, both received middling marks in the popularity poll.
The survey had 489 respondents and a 4.4 percent margin of error. It was conducted in early September, before an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria that pollsters say boosted Olmert’s low approval rating by as much as 10 percentage points.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
