A poll published by an Israeli research center on Tuesday has revealed that most Israelis do not want Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to run in the upcoming election.
The poll was released by the Viterbi Center for Public Opinion and Policy Research at the Israel Democracy Institute, based in occupied Jerusalem.
It was conducted between May 31 and June 5. According to the results, 61 percent of Israelis believe Netanyahu should not run in the elections. Thirty-five percent were in favor of the premier running.
The number of Israeli Jews who are opposed to his running stood at 57 percent, while 39.5 percent of Jewish Israelis believe he should run.
Among the Palestinians with Israeli citizenship living in the territories ethnically cleansed during the 1948 Nakba, 83 percent are against Netanyahu running in the election, according to the poll.
Eleven percent of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship support his candidacy, the poll added. A recent poll revealed a significant deterioration in the global reputation of Netanyahu and Israel.
The survey was published amid growing uncertainty over Netanyahu’s political future following comments by US President Donald Trump, who claimed the premier may want to step back from politics.
Trump told ABC News on Tuesday that he was unsure “if Bibi even wants to continue.”
Most Israelis don't want Netanyahu to run in the next election, poll finds https://t.co/80hA7dxXLg
— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) June 9, 2026“I don’t know, he’s had an amazing career. Does he want to continue? Because, you know, he’s a wartime prime minister. We will very shortly win the war one way or the other, and you know he’s a wartime prime minister,” Trump added.
Likud has since responded, saying that Netanyahu will run in the upcoming election. Netanyahu is mired in a years-long criminal trial over corruption and other scandals. The trial has seen near-constant delays.
The prime minister has also failed to resolve the Haredi draft crisis plaguing Israel, with ultra-Orthodox Jews (Haredim) still avoiding conscription and opposition parties criticizing the ruling coalition for placing secular reservists at the forefront of the conflict.
Israeli army leadership has warned of a collapse in the reserve forces, and troops are taking heavy losses in battles against Hezbollah in south Lebanon.
Since Netanyahu's government came to power in late 2022, illegal West Bank settlements and annexation plans have expanded dramatically, and a genocide in Gaza has taken place.
Pew Research: Israel Net Favorability
🇬🇭 Ghana: +13
🇳🇬 Nigeria: +6
🇮🇳 India: +4
🇰🇪 Kenya: +3
——
🇧🇷 Brazil: -19
🇺🇸 U.S: -23 (was +30 in 2013)
🇸🇸 South Africa: -31
🇦🇷 Argentina: -34
🇨🇦 Canada: -37
🇲🇽 Mexico: -37
🇰🇷 South Korea: -43
🇬🇧 U.K: -44
🇫🇷 France: -44
🇩🇪 Germany: -50
🇮🇹… pic.twitter.com/viP24XwTkA
Tel Aviv has also continued to wage brutal wars on multiple fronts, including Lebanon and Iran.
The draft crisis and other long-standing issues between Netanyahu and the opposition have prompted former premiers Naftali Bennet and Yair Lapid to merge parties in a bid to challenge the prime minister politically.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 17:40Continuing a trend of increasingly dismal projections, Social Security's trustees have revised their prediction of when the massive benefit program's trust fund will run out of money, moving it to the fourth quarter of 2032, sooner than last year's projection that the money will run out in 2033. They attributed most of the the change to declining fertility rates and immigration, along with tax reductions included in Trump's 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA).
When the trust fund runs out, money will still be coming into the program via ongoing taxes from workers and self-employed individuals. However, without the ability to tap the trust fund, the program won't be able to keep paying out full benefits. Under the law governing the program, insufficient assets means payouts must be cut for all beneficiaries by a uniform percentage. In their report posted on Tuesday, the trustees projected that benefits will have to be slashed by 22% in 2032.
Politicians have plenty of unpredictable crises to deal with.
But the Social Security trustees write a report to Congress every year telling them the date when this particular crisis will happen.
It used to be far in the future. Now, it’s just six years away. pic.twitter.com/tKkgrhPCVE
That scenario assumes Congress and the president fail to intervene by then. Given older Americans' high propensity to vote -- which will only be magnified with their retirement income under threat -- it's a safe bet that something's going to change to fend off an across-the-board slashing of benefits.
Potential tweaks include raising the eligibility-age for receiving Social Security income, increasing payroll taxes that fund the program, and "means-testing" that would cut benefits for better-off Americans. The federal government would like you to believe that Social Security isn't currently means-tested, but it truly is in a back-door way: the higher your income, the more your Social Security benefit is taxed. Taxation of Social Security income is just a roundabout way of slashing benefits -- by giving you your "full" benefit but then confiscating a portion. Congress could also choose to throw out the (increasingly fictional) framework that positions Social Security as a self-funding pension program -- by opting to fund benefits with general revenue and borrowing.
Composition of Federal Spending, 1962-2025. Source: "Spending, Taxes and Deficits: A Book Of Charts," 2026 BrookingsThough Congress has long kicked the can down the road, we'll soon have a group of legislators trapped by the timing of their particular tenure in office, and compelled to take action for the first time since a 1983 deal brokered by President Ronald Reagan and House Speaker Tip O'Neill. "Senators elected this fall will be in office when the SocSec trust fund hits insolvency. So it *should* be a major campaign issue. But few voters care," observed the Brookings Institution's Jessica Riedl on X. "They have their silly narratives ('stop stealing the trust fund,') & fake solutions ('remove the cap'). But, y'all were warned."
"Remove the cap" refers to the fact that the Social Security portion of the payroll tax is only applied to incomes up to $184,500 in 2026. Demagoguing leftist politicians regularly tout removing the payroll-tax cap as a simple solution, but as with the government's broader fiscal woes, the problem is so large that sticking it to more prosperous Americans doesn't get you very far.
The trustees pointed to multiple factors driving their revised projection on when the trust fund will run out. In addition to dropping fertility rates -- which continues to worsen the ratio of people taking benefits to to people paying into the program -- they also said reduced immigration is lowering program revenue. They also noted that revenue has been decreased by Trump's OBBBA-enabled $4,000 tax deduction that primarily benefits moderate-income recipients of Social Security benefits. Riedl and the American Enterprise Institute's Andrew Biggs also highlighted a much lesser-known dynamic that's pushing Social Security toward insolvency:
This is mainly because - when converting lifetime earnings into today's dollars to calculate initial benefit levels - SocSec adjusts for the economy's long-term wage growth instead of price inflation.
Since wages grow faster than prices over the long-term, it can be like a…
Though Social Security's crisis is getting closer and closer, most federal politicians will continue to steer clear of the issue until 2032, and the few who dare to address it before then will be promptly accused of "attacking" the program.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 17:20Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,
The brother of embattled Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has sued the very city government his sister leads, alleging officials failed to protect homeowners and business owners during the destructive Palisades Fire.
Kenneth Bass and his wife Cindy joined a class-action lawsuit in May against the City of Los Angeles, alleging the city failed to fill the Santa Ynez Reservoir when the wildfire broke out on January 7, 2025, according to multiple reports.
The lawsuit, filed on May 18, was first reported by L.A. Material.
It includes more than 180 plaintiffs and names multiple defendants, including the Bass-run Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
In the lawsuit, Kenneth Bass alleged he and his wife suffered smoke inhalation injuries, as well as emotional distress stemming from the destruction of their home.
The couple previously owned a property with a pool and panoramic views of the Malibu Pier, according to L.A. Material.
Mayor Bass has publicly referenced her family's loss, telling reporters in 2025: "The loss that you're going through, I share indirectly. It's hit my family too."
Bass adviser Yusef Robb dismissed questions about the lawsuit, telling reporters that there was "nothing new here."
"Thousands of people are plaintiffs in this action, which names 18 public and private sector defendants," Robb added.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office downplayed the lawsuit, saying the city is confident it is not liable for the wildfires.
Meanwhile, a Frantz Law Group attorney representing Kenneth Bass told the California Post the lawsuit is part of a broader mass tort process and said his family ties are "irrelevant" to his claims.
"As part of the mass tort legal process, Mr. and Mrs. Bass' names were formally added as some of the nearly 40,000 victims who suffered losses," the attorney stated. "Their family connections are irrelevant, and as non-public citizens they are entitled to respectful privacy as they pursue their legal rights along with all represented victims."
Bass was elected mayor in 2022, after serving for over a decade in the U.S. House of Representatives. She is facing a tough re-election campaign amid criticism over her administration's handling of the wildfire response.
Tyler Durden Thu, 06/11/2026 - 17:00