The newly announced merger between former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid marks the clearest attempt yet to consolidate the opposition bloc ahead of the next election, reviving the political partnership that succeeded in toppling Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2021 when they led a short-lived diverse coalition of right-wing, centrist and left-wing parties.

While the merger reflects familiar strategic calculations — including pooling resources, maximizing seats and projecting unity — its real significance lies in the unresolved questions it raises: whether the alliance can meaningfully shift the balance of power, how former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot’s decision to join or run alone could reshape the race, and whether a potential breakaway “Likud B” faction on the right might ultimately determine who forms the next government.

Prof. Assaf Shapira, head of the Israel Democracy Institute’s Political Reform Program, noted that despite some new faces, including Eisenkot’s Yashar!, Yair Golan’s The Democrats and Yoaz Hendel’s The Reservists entering the political arena, the broader dynamics of the Bennett-Lapid union to unseat Netanyahu remain strikingly familiar.

“There are a few new players, but basically we are in the same situation, and it’s the same game so far,” he said.

The merger reflects clear strategic incentives for both leaders, most evidently for Lapid, whose Yesh Atid party — currently the largest opposition party and the second-largest Knesset faction with 24 seats — could fall to just five seats in the next election, barely clearing the electoral threshold, according to recent polling.

A joint run with Bennett, who has consistently polled as one of the two strongest parties in the opposition bloc alongside Eisenkot, would allow Lapid to improve his projected seat share and shore up his political position.

However, Pollster Mitchell Barak of Keevoon Research Strategy & Communications said Bennett needed the merger as much as Lapid.

“People underestimated Lapid up until now and put too much credit in the polls,” he said, adding that the Yesh Atid leader “has been around for a long time and was the one who put together the last government. A lot of people would have come back to Lapid had he stuck around on his own.”

Bennett, Barak argued, had no choice but to enter the merger, primarily due to mounting competition from Eisenkot, whose security credentials have reshaped the political battlefield on the center-right, and in many recent polls has been neck-and-neck with or even overtaking Bennett.

“Once Eisenkot entered the race, Bennett had to give up his dream of getting those right-of-center security voters. Bennett wasn’t saying or doing anything for the past year, and yet trying to convince people that he could get voters from the right and the left by being in the center and doing nothing,” Barak argued, adding that voters prioritizing security and military experience were increasingly gravitating toward Eisenkot.

“Bennett had no choice but to break center and leave, which means going with Lapid,” he said.

The former prime minister stands to benefit in several ways from the union, including from Yesh Atid’s significantly greater state funding, tied in part to the number of parliamentary seats a party currently holds — a system that makes it inherently more difficult for newer parties to compete.

“Bennett’s party would have received from the state about NIS 11 million ($3.68 million), but Lapid will get about NIS 27 million ($9 million) because he has 24 seats in the........

© The Times of Israel