Former Israeli PMs Bennett, Lapid unite to challenge Netanyahu in elections 

Two ⁠of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ⁠Netanyahu’s biggest political rivals say they are joining forces in a bid to oust his coalition government in the upcoming election expected later this year.

The former prime ministers – right-wing Naftali Bennett and centrist Yair ⁠Lapid – issued statements on Sunday announcing the merger of their parties, Bennett 2026 and There is a Future.

Their alliance is aimed at uniting a fragmented opposition that appears to have little in common beyond their shared hostility toward Netanyahu.

Bennett’s office said the new party will be called Together, and that he will be its leader.

“I am pleased to announce that tonight, together with my friend Yair Lapid, I am taking the most Zionist and patriotic step we have ever taken for our country,” Bennett said in a joint televised statement with Lapid.

During the televised statement, Lapid said: “Bennett is a right-wing politician, but an honest one, and there is trust between us.”

“This move is intended to unite the bloc, put an end to internal divisions, and focus all efforts on winning the critical upcoming elections – and leading Israel ⁠forward into the future,” Lapid also said.

Bennett said that if elected, he would establish a national commission of inquiry into what he calls failures leading up to the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack – something the current Netanyahu government has rejected.

Lapid and Bennett have been outspoken critics of Netanyahu’s handling of the country’s wars since that attack, with Lapid labeling the two-week ceasefire agreed with Iran a “political disaster”.

Bennett and Lapid have joined forces before, putting an end to Netanyahu’s successive 12-year tenure in a 2021 election, only to form a coalition government that survived barely 18 months.

Before that, they muscled their way into his 2013 coalition government in a ‌move that left Netanyahu’s traditional ultra-Orthodox allies out.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, made a comeback when he won the November 2022 election and formed the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.

But Hamas’s October 2023 attack on southern Israel, which saw Israel respond with a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza and attack several of its neighbours in recent years, left Netanyahu’s security credentials in tatters. Polls since then have successively predicted that he will lose the next election, due by the end of October.

Bennett, 54, a former army commando turned tech millionaire, has been trailing Netanyahu ⁠in election polls. An April 23 survey by Israel’s N12 News found Bennett securing 21 of the Knesset’s 120 seats, against 25 seats for Netanyahu’s Likud.

It found Lapid’s party securing only seven seats, down from the 24 it currently holds.

The survey was on par with previous polls by academic institutions and other Israeli media, which ⁠have put Bennett as the top contender against Netanyahu.

Lapid, 62, a former TV news anchor, claims to represent Israel’s secular middle class, which has become increasingly incensed by what it sees as an unfair tax and military service burden.