Two of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strongest rivals said they are uniting in a bid to unseat his coalition government in an election expected later this year.
Former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced the merger of their parties, Bennett 2026 and There Is a Future. “We are standing here together for the sake of our children. The State of Israel must change direction,” Lapid said at a joint news conference with Bennett.
Bennett said the new party will be called Together and that he will lead it. “After 30 years, it is time to part ways with Netanyahu and open a new chapter for Israel,” he added.
Since his first term in the 1990s, Netanyahu has remained a deeply polarising figure both at home and abroad.
Joining forces again, Bennett and Lapid have partnered before, ending Netanyahu’s 12-year run in the 2021 election. Their coalition, however, held only a slim majority and was sharply divided over key issues, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, collapsing after about 18 months.
That government also marked the first time an Arab party, the United Arab List led by Mansour Abbas, joined an Israeli coalition.
Earlier, in 2013, the pair had also joined Netanyahu’s government, sidelining his traditional ultra-Orthodox allies.
President Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, returned to power after winning the November 2022 election and forming the most right-wing government in the country’s history.
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But the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, which triggered a wider regional conflict, dented his security credentials, with polls suggesting he could lose the next election due by October.
Despite this, Netanyahu has repeatedly demonstrated strong political resilience.
He shared a 2021 photo of Bennett and Lapid with Abbas, writing on Telegram: “They did it once; they’ll do it again,” in an apparent jab at their previous coalition.
Bennett, however, said he would not partner with Arab parties again and ruled out conceding any territory, a reference to Palestinian aspirations for an independent state.
Reuters