Two of Israeli Prime Minister (PM) Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rivals have announced their collaboration in an effort to remove his coalition government in the upcoming elections later this year.
The former PMs, right-wing Naftali Bennett and centrist Yair Lapid, released statements on Sunday declaring the unification of their parties, Bennett 2026 and There is a Future.
This alliance seeks to consolidate a divided opposition that seems to share little in common aside from their mutual opposition to Netanyahu.
Bennett’s office indicated that the new party will be named Together, with him serving as its leader.
Bennett stated during a joint televised announcement with Lapid, “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”
In the televised address, Lapid commented, “Bennett is a right-wing politician, yet he is an honest one, and there exists trust between us.”
Bennett added that if elected, he would start a national commission of inquiry into what he describes as failures leading up to the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023, a proposal that the current Netanyahu administration has dismissed.
Former PMs criticise Netanyahu’s ‘political disaster’ in Iran
Both Lapid and Bennett have been vocal critics of Netanyahu’s management of the country’s conflicts since that attack, with Lapid denouncing the two-week ceasefire negotiated with Iran as a “political disaster.”
Bennett and Lapid have previously collaborated, ending Netanyahu’s continuous 12-year rule in the 2021 election, only to establish a coalition government that lasted just over 18 months.
Netanyahu, who is Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, returned by winning the November 2022 election and forming the most right-wing government in Israel’s history.
However, the Hamas attack on southern Israel in October 2023, which led Israel to respond with a devastating war against Palestinians in Gaza and to engage several neighboring countries in recent years, has severely affected Netanyahu’s security credentials.
Read more: Netanyahu confirms his cancer diagnosis
