They\u2019ve overcome those differences before, of course, when they built a wildly diverse coalition after the 2021 elections, under which first Bennett and then Lapid served as prime minister.<\/p>\n
But that was a post-election partnership that represented the only means by which either, indeed both, could attain the leadership of Israel \u2014 albeit briefly, as it turned out. Sunday night\u2019s alliance is a pre-election choice, and the old-new partners made a virtue of their dissimilarities.<\/p>\n
Bennett readily acknowledged that he and Lapid \u201chave different views,\u201d and declared himself a man of the right \u2014 a \u201cright-wing, liberal Zionist\u201d as he put it. Lapid spoke for his centrist constituency, explaining that \u201cto win the elections, the entire center must unite behind Bennett.\u201d And both argued that the overwhelming majority of Israelis, more than just about anything else, are seeking unity and common purpose from their leadership, after years of internal division.<\/p>\n
The merger of Bennett\u2019s barely formed \u201cBennett 2026\u201d party with Lapid\u2019s well-established Yesh Atid makes clear sense for Bennett, who will be the leader of \u201cTogether\u201d and thus likely the undisputed head of the anti-Netanyahu bloc going into the elections.<\/p>\n
It marks more of a concession by Lapid, since there will be no rotating the prime ministership in the event of a win this time. Lapid indicated he might not even be No.2 on their joint slate if fellow opposition party leader Gadi Eisenkot comes aboard. (\u201cWhatever it takes\u201d to win the elections, said Lapid.) But Yesh Atid has been sagging heavily in the polls, and might have been at risk of falling below the electoral threshold altogether.<\/p>\n
Bennett projected absolute confidence in imminent victory and responded to questions about how he could draw votes from the Netanyahu camp, and muster a Zionist majority without relying on Arab parties, by asking one reporter how Netanyahu could possibly achieve the latter feat. The incumbent leads a bloc that only has enough support for \u201c35 Zionist seats\u201d in the 120-member Knesset, said Bennett.<\/p>\n
Bennett also promised \u201csurprises ahead\u201d \u2014 presumably in the shape of further alliances and compelling new candidates.<\/p>\n
But Netanyahu, the greatest Israeli political campaigner of his generation, will have known that this merger was on the cards, and is doubtless preparing surprises of his own. Bennett and Lapid may have ousted him in the summer of 2021, but within 18 months, Netanyahu had gradually persuaded most MKs in Bennett\u2019s own party to abandon their leader. And it was Netanyahu who won the November 2022 elections and is currently on course to hold his right, far-right, ultra-Orthodox coalition together for a full, four-year term.<\/p>\n
Asked about the dangers of Netanyahu managing to prise defectors from Bennett\u2019s next set of MKs, Lapid replied lightly that Bennett, as a smart man, has doubtless learned the lessons.<\/p>\n
Bennett described their merger as a \u201cdaring\u201d move, and asserted that \u201cWho dares wins.\u201d \u201cThe people of Israel are thinking big,\u201d he said, dismissing reporters\u2019 questions about a seat here or there potentially making all the difference on election day. \u201cThey want a big change.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lapid, only a little more circumspect, told a watching nation \u2014 much of their press conference was televised on the main nightly news broadcasts \u2014 that the alliance guarantees \u201ca government without Netanyahu,\u201d in an election that he said was not so much \u201cfateful\u201d for Israel as \u201cexistential.\u201d<\/p>\n
The right-wing Channel 14 had cut away from the press conference by that point, and soon after was showing its latest survey findings, which claimed to find that the Netanyahu-led bloc is heading for another Knesset majority, with 64 seats \u2014 a striking 13-14 more than other surveys have been finding in recent weeks \u2014 with Netanyahu\u2019s own Likud on 34 seats, compared to a pitiful 20 for the new Bennett-Lapid \u201cTogether\u201d alliance.<\/p>\n
But even Channel 14 had shown the first 10 minutes of the presser, up to and including the final sentence of Lapid\u2019s prepared remarks to the Israeli public. \u201cYou\u2019re going to now hear 1,000 interpretations [of this alliance],\u201d said the man who has now put aside any realistic prospect of again being prime minister himself. \u201cBut remember one thing: This thing that you\u2019re feeling right now, that you haven\u2019t felt for a long time, is called hope.\u201d<\/p>\n
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