Netanhayu's party gets a bounce in polling after speech to Congress
JERUSALEM - Opinion polls in Israel indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party received a slight bump upward after his address to Congress yesterday. It came two weeks before Israeli elections.
A poll on Israel's Channel 10 shows Netanyahu's Likud party picking up two seats to 23, putting it neck and neck with the dovish opposition.
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is responding to President Barack Obama's assertion that the Israeli leader had offered no viable alternative to the negotiations with Iran. In a statement issued after he arrived back home, Netanyahu says he proposed a "practical alternative" with "tougher restrictions" that would extend the time it would take Iran to build a nuclear weapon.
He said his proposal also would maintain restrictions until Tehran stops what he calls "its sponsorship of terrorism around the world, its aggression against its neighbors and its calls for Israel's destruction."