If elections were held today, and Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar party were to partner with hawkish Yisrael Beytenu, they would together form the largest faction in the Knesset, with 26 of its 120 seats, according to a poll conducted this week by Zman Yisrael, The Times of Israel’s Hebrew-language sister site.

A Channel 12 poll, conducted on Thursday, found that a Yashar-Yisrael Beytenu union would gain one seat for the Zionist opposition bloc, granting it a total of 60 seats, as opposed to 59 with the parties separate.

According to the Zman poll, the Zionist opposition — defined as those parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but not including ultra-Orthodox and Arab parties — would reach 61 either way. The current coalition would win 50, and Arab-majority parties the remaining nine.

According to Zman, if elections were held today, without the merger, the “Together” party, led by Bennett and including Opposition Leader Yair Lapid and his Yesh Atid party, would win 26 seats, as would Netanyahu’s Likud.

Yashar would win 14 seats, while Yisrael Beytenu, led by Avigdor Liberman, would win nine, and Yair Golan’s left-wing The Democrats would win eight. A joint Yisrael Beytenu-Yashar slate would win 26 seats.

Blue and White, the centrist party led by former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, would win four seats; Gantz has said that his party would prefer to join a government with the anti-Netanyahu bloc, but would sit with Netanyahu rather than force another round of elections.

The pro-Netanyahu bloc, composed of parties that are currently in the government, would win 50 seats, according to Zman. Five of........

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