Two former prime ministers are combining forces again in an effort to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu in Israeli elections expected later this year. Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced Sunday that their parties will merge into a new faction called Together, led by Bennett, Reuters reports. "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. Bennett declared it was "time to part with Netanyahu and open a new chapter for Israel."
The move reunites a partnership that briefly ended Netanyahu's 12-year run in 2021, when Bennett and Lapid led a fragile, ideologically mixed coalition that lasted about 18 months and included, for the first time, an Arab party, the United Arab List. The two men have ideological differences. Bennett is an Orthodox Jew with hard-line views toward the Palestinians, while Lapid is secular and seen as more moderate. But they had a close working relationship during their coalition. Bennett said if elected, the new government on its first day would establish a state commission of inquiry into the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel that started the war against Hamas, an issue that has shadowed Netanyahu, per the AP.
Netanyahu, who returned to power after the November 2022 vote, responded by posting a 2021 photo of Bennett, Lapid, and United Arab List leader Mansour Abbas, writing: "They did it once, they'll do it again," a jab at their previous coalition. Recent polling by Israel's N12 News indicated Bennett's bloc had overtaken Netanyahu as the main challenger: Bennett's party was projected at 21 of the Knesset's 120 seats versus 25 for Netanyahu's Likud, while Lapid's party had slumped to seven from its current 24. But the broader picture suggested Netanyahu's current right-wing and religious alliance would fall short of a majority, with about 50 seats, compared with at least 60 for a potential Bennett-Lapid-led coalition including smaller factions.
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