The victory of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in yesterday’s Israeli election reflected Israel’s very real “security concerns,” an unsigned editorial (Google link) in The Wall Street Journal asserted today. The editorial observed that “opposition leader Isaac Herzog also opposed Mr. Obama’s emerging deal with Iran.”

In an associated video (embedded below), Journal editor Mary Kissel interviewed Omri Ceren, Managing Director of Press and Strategy at The Israel Project. Ceren explained that the inaccuracy of pre-election polls could be explained by an Israeli law that prohibits publication of polling data for the final days before the election. These polls didn’t pick up the late Likud surge.

In answer to a question about whetherNetanyahu’s stance regarding Iran would “harden” following his decisive victory, Ceren answered:

I don’t think it hardens, because I don’t think his stance was ever politically driven. I think that the prime minister’s views on Iran are well-known. We don’t want to be too gradiose about these things but I think that he really does go to sleep and wake up fearing Iran will acquire … nuclear weapons technology and use it to kill millions and millions and millions of innocent people. And I think that’s what he expressed when he came to the United States and I think that is what his government is oriented towards, the national security parts of his government are oriented towards.

The section of the video dealing with Israel runs from 7:10 to 10:25.

[Photo: Associated Press / YouTube ]