Two polls released today in Israel have confirmed what most observers have long thought — that new elections would bring Bibi Netanyahu and the Likud party back to power. The Haaretz poll has Likud, headed by Netanyahu, winning 29 Knesset seats (more than double the party’s current 12 seats); Kadima, led by Tzipi Livni, winning 23; and Labor, led by Ehud Barak, winning 15. The Ma’ariv poll found roughly the same results, with Likud at 30, Kadima at 25, and Labor at 18.

As a side note, it is entertaining to read Haaretz‘s grudging and opaque story on the poll results. One would think that a poll confirming the dramatic increase in Likud’s popularity would be headlined and would emphasize that information. Instead, the story is slugged, “Poll: Mergers drive away voters, parties better off running alone,” and only in the third paragraph (in the context of a discussion of the electoral prospects of merged parties) does the reader learn that Likud would handily beat Kadima and Labor in an election.

These results are unsurprising. Israeli voters, like their American counterparts, tend to be motivated in times of danger by a very basic consideration: Are my children going to be blown up on a bus? Is a rocket going to crash through my roof? The Likud party in Israel, like the Republican party in America, is seen as being most capable of preventing such tragedies.