The centrist leader of Israel\u2019s opposition, Yair Lapid, and a right-wing former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, announced on Sunday that they would combine forces in elections later this year. The merger is an apparent bid to reconstitute a partnership that temporarily unseated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu five years ago.<\/p>\n
Mr. Bennett and Mr. Lapid said their two parties, Bennett 2026 and Yesh Atid, would unite into a party to be called Yachad, Hebrew for \u201ctogether,\u201d under Mr. Bennett\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n
They described the move as \u201cthe first step in the process of uniting and repairing the state of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a joint news conference broadcast live on Sunday evening, the pair presented their political and ideological differences as an advantage and an example for a deeply fractured nation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe unity we share is a message to all the people of Israel,\u201d Mr. Bennett said, declaring that \u201cthe era of polarization is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Lapid described Mr. Bennett as \u201ca man of the right, but a man of the liberal, decent, law-abiding right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Invoking this month\u2019s election in Hungary, Mr. Lapid said that Prime Minister Viktor Orban had lost in a landslide there after 16 years in power \u201cbecause people believed change was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey united behind one candidate,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Mr. Netanyahu, Israel\u2019s longest-serving prime minister, has been in office for most of the past 17 years as the head of the conservative Likud party. After the last election, in 2022, he formed the most right-wing and religiously conservative governing coalition in Israel\u2019s history, made up of far-right and strictly Orthodox coalition partners.<\/p>\n
Likud has been leading the polls<\/a> as Israel\u2019s largest party, with the potential to win 25 or more seats in the 120-seat Knesset, or Parliament, followed by Mr. Bennett\u2019s Bennett 2026.<\/p>\n But Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s coalition, as a whole, has lost support since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023, and it is not expected to win again in its current form. The assault ignited a devastating two-year war in Gaza and a series of inconclusive conflicts in Iran and Lebanon, all of which have fallen short of Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s promises of total victory.<\/p>\n Many Israelis are angry and frustrated over the intelligence and policy failures that preceded the surprise October 2023 attack, as well as Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s refusal to accept any personal responsibility or to set up an independent commission of inquiry<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Bennett said a government under his leadership would establish an independent commission of inquiry \u201con Day 1.\u201d<\/p>\n Before the wars, the right-wing government\u2019s divisive efforts to curb the powers of the judiciary<\/a> set off mass national protests amid fears for the nature of the country\u2019s democracy. Mr. Netanyahu is also battling corruption charges in a long-running trial<\/a> that has split Israelis.<\/p>\n Yet the parliamentary opposition has proved weak and ineffective. It is made up of a diverse array of centrist, left-wing, right-wing and Arab parties, with several actors vying to lead the camp and replace Mr. Netanyahu.<\/p>\n Support for Mr. Lapid, who is broadly viewed as weak on national security, has been flagging. Mr. Bennett, who sat out the last election and is not currently a member of Parliament, has been broadcasting a message of national unity and pragmatism. Together, they hope to appeal to the broadest possible range of the Israeli electorate, from the liberal center-left to moderate right-wingers.<\/p>\n In a nod to the right, Mr. Bennett said on Sunday that a government he led would \u201cnot hand over a centimeter\u201d of territory \u201cto the enemy.\u201d In their opening statements, both men avoided other contentious issues, such as the surge of settler violence in the occupied West Bank and the future of Gaza.<\/p>\n By joining forces, the pair increase their prospects of overtaking Likud in the election, which is slated to take place in October at the latest. Customarily, the party that emerges from an Israeli election with the largest number of seats, and has a realistic chance of forging a coalition, is given first crack at forming the next government.<\/p>\n Mr. Bennett and Mr. Lapid are far from political strangers.<\/p>\n They formed their first alliance in 2013, joining a Netanyahu-led coalition that kept the ultra-Orthodox parties out of power for two years.<\/p>\n After an election in 2021, the two men patched together a coalition made up of eight ideologically disparate parties spanning Israel\u2019s fractious political spectrum, relying for the first time on the support of a small Arab, Islamist party, Raam, led by Mansour Abbas. It was dubbed the \u201cchange government\u201d by supporters.<\/p>\n In a taste of the election campaign to come, Mr. Netanyahu pounced on the pair\u2019s past cooperation with Mr. Abbas, which proved unpopular, to denounce the new Bennett-Lapid union. On Sunday, Mr. Netanyahu posted a reel set to scary music<\/a> on social media showing an old image of Mr. Bennett, Mr. Lapid and Mr. Abbas with text reading: \u201cThey\u2019ve done it once. They\u2019ll do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n