Pollster and political strategist Douglas Schoen. Photo: Douglasschoen.com

Top Democratic pollster and political strategist Douglas Schoen weighed in on yesterday’s Israeli election in an interview with The Algemeiner on Wednesday, calling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decisive victory a “stunning rebuke to President Obama.”

The election was a “stunning comeback” for Netanyahu, Schoen said, and “a stunning rebuke to President Obama, who did everything within his power to defeat the prime minister.”

Schoen was political adviser to President Clinton and is considered one of the inventors of overnight polling. He added that Netanyahu will almost certainly be able to form a government in the nation’s parliamentary system, and credited Netanyahu’s eleventh hour comeback to the prime minister’s opposition to a Palestinian state.

“His last minute pledge to oppose a Palestinian state almost certainly made up the difference, in that  he [Netanyahu] was trailing by 2-3 seats at the weekend,” Schoen told The Algemeiner.

In the final tally, Netanyahu’s Likud party scored 30 seats in Israel’s Knesset, six ahead of its chief rival the Zionist Union, which scored 24 seats.