On April 26, former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid gesture as they announce their political union ahead of this year's general election.Gideon Markowitz/Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election bid has been shaken by two top politicians who joined forces this week in a bid to oust him, raising the possibility of political change while the country is still at war on multiple fronts.
Naftali Bennett from the right and Yair Lapid from the centre-left are forming a party called Yachad (Together), news of which temporarily overshadowed reports of the wars against Iran and Hezbollah, its proxy militia in Lebanon, and raised the question of whether a change of government was on the horizon for Israel.
Israel’s election is expected in October.
Opinion: Lebanon and Israel are strange bedfellows – but they have a chance to make real change
Political strategist Aviv Bushinsky described it as the “big bang” of Israeli politics, as it has jump-started the election cycle.
“What Bennett did ignited the elections. Now everybody is talking about it. Now it becomes something more tangible,” Mr. Bushinsky told The Globe and Mail.
Mr. Bennett and Mr. Lapid have done it before. Their power-sharing agreement in 2021 gave them both short stints as prime minister before their government crumbled and Mr. Netanyahu swept back into power in 2022.
United opposition to Mr. Netanyahu has grown over time over how effectively he has been handling the wars, particularly the home front, the lack of an equitable draft policy, as well as his failure to create a commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7, 2023 surprise Hamas-led attack on Israel’s southern border. These come on top of concerns that pre-date the war: the erosion of democracy and corruption charges against Mr. Netanyahu for which he is on trial.
Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, has been in office, off and on, for more than 18 years. He had not been expected to politically weather the Oct. 7 attack and the subsequent multifront wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog attend a memorial service, in Meitar, Israel on January 28.Amir Cohen/Reuters
Polls done one day after Sunday’s merger announcement, however, were mixed. Israel’s Channel 12 put the Together party at 26 seats, only one ahead of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party. Channel 13 had Together and Likud tied at 26, and Channel 11 had Likud ahead with 27 seats versus Together’s 24.
Hebrew University political scientist Gideon Rahat told The Globe that, traditionally, party mergers prior to an election, in a system that favours a diversity of options, lead to a drop in the polls.
“If you take two options, and especially one that is seen as right-wing and the other that’s seen as the centre, and you put them together, you are likely to lose voters,” Prof. Rahat said.
Still, it could be effective here given that it’s better to take on Mr. Netanyahu in a one-to-one competition rather than split the votes in a three-way race, he said.
This merger, however, was more likely born of pragmatic considerations, such as the fear that despite Yesh Atid’s strong financial and campaign structure, Mr. Lapid’s party might still not pass the threshold of support needed to survive as a party in the next election, Prof. Rahat explained. Meanwhile, Mr. Bennett’s party, Bennett 2026, has seen its support climb but lacked the necessary funds for the campaign.
“So Lapid brought the money, and Bennett brought the support,” Prof. Rahat said.
Pollster and former Netanyahu adviser Mitchell Barak told The Globe the merger is good for Mr. Netanyahu because it demonstrates he is still so powerful that his opponents figured it would take a union of two veteran politicians to oust him.
Mr. Bennett has a history of starting out strong but petering out, while Mr. Netanyahu is often initially weak but ends up on top, Mr. Barak explained.
“He starts at a low point, it looks like he is going to lose, and then he rallies the troops,” he said.
Mr. Bushinsky said the critical question, though, is not which party gets the most votes but which one can form a coalition of 61 seats in the 120-seat Knesset.
Polls conducted Monday show that the Bennett-Lapid alliance will not be able to form a coalition government without relying, as they did in 2021, on the Arab-Israeli party Ra’am, headed by Mansour Abbas, which is expected to win five seats.
In Depth: Settlers push for ‘Greater Israel’ more boldly on the borders
It’s believed the presence of Ra’am in the 2021 coalition was partly responsible for its demise.
Based on the latest polls, the opposition bloc led by Together would have 60 seats without Ra’am, while the government bloc would have 50. The Arab parties, which are currently in neither bloc, make up 10 seats.
Unless something changes, Mr. Bushinsky said, Israel could face the same stalemate that plagued it in 2019 and 2020, when it went from election to election without a clear winner.
Among the factors that could influence the outcome of the election is the war with Iran, for which a fragile ceasefire is in place.
“So, for example, should the Islamic Republic in Iran fall, that would likely hand Netanyahu an electoral victory. Then Netanyahu will be able to say: I’ve changed the face of the Middle East,” Mr. Bushinsky said. “Otherwise, I don’t see any scenario in which I think Netanyahu would be able to win the next election.”