Bennett and Lapid unite in bid to oust Netanyahu in election

Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid reunited on Sunday in a single electoral slate, betting that a fresh anti-Netanyahu alliance can do more than split the opposition’s anger into a workable government. The new party, called Together, will be led by Bennett and is being framed as a direct answer to the opposition’s chronic infighting.

The merger joins Bennett 2026 and Yesh Atid, and it arrives with Israel’s next Knesset election due no later than October 2026. Bennett’s camp left the door open for additional allies, including former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, as the two former prime ministers try to widen the bloc beyond their own brands and turn a tactical partnership into a credible governing alternative.

Their political logic is clear: Bennett and Lapid already proved in 2021 that they can assemble a coalition capable of ending Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year run in office. That government, built on a rotation deal with Bennett first and Lapid later taking over, survived only about 18 months before collapsing and returning Netanyahu to power. The new arrangement carries both the memory of that success and the warning of that failure.

Polling before the merger suggested Bennett has a real opening. An April 23 N12 News survey put a Bennett-led party at 21 Knesset seats, with Likud at 25 in the 120-seat parliament. A Maariv poll published just before the announcement reportedly showed Bennett roughly tied with Likud. Those numbers make his return more than symbolic: they suggest he could compete for leadership of the opposition rather than merely subtract votes from it.

The joint slate also reflects a broader effort to pull in voters weary of the current political stalemate. Bennett has been signaling a more centrist message on issues such as public transit on Shabbat, a sign that he is trying to broaden his appeal beyond his traditional right-wing base. Eisenkot and other opposition figures welcomed the merger, while right-wing and pro-Netanyahu figures attacked it as an artificial anti-Bibi construction.

For now, the alliance is a test of whether anti-Netanyahu arithmetic can be converted into something sturdier. The promise is a larger, more disciplined bloc that can challenge Likud across the center, the right and parts of the security establishment. The risk is the same one that brought down the last Bennett-Lapid government: a coalition united by what it opposes, but strained by everything else.