After referring to himself as a right-winger just yesterday, and despite having already formed a government with the entire left-wing camp including the Muslim Brotherhood, Naftali Bennett today completed the transformation he began in his earliest days in politics and officially switched sides. In recent months Bennett toyed with the idea that he could pull votes from Netanyahu’s supporters into the opposition, but when all those efforts failed he chose to do what made sense for him—and look out for himself. Bennett won’t bring a single vote from the right-wing camp, but by joining Yesh Atid he achieved his goal of crossing the electoral threshold and heading a major party in the next Knesset.
Bennett saw the polls. He understood the threshold was approaching in a threatening way—too threatening—and was forced to act. After years of avoiding political statements so as not to scare off the right-wingers still with him, Bennett decided that in his political survival battle it’s better to unite than be erased. His first preference was undoubtedly Gadi Eisenkot, but after Eisenkot dug in with his refusal, seeing his own surprising growth in the polls, Bennett turned with no choice to Lapid, who rushed to extend a hand to him—and a lifeline to himself.
Bennett will try to keep presenting himself as a right-winger, despite Lior Horev, despite the Kaplanists he already added to the list, but with the merger with Lapid the chance he’ll succeed in maintaining the impression that he remains part of the ideological group that was his breeding ground is like Ahmed Tibi’s chance of convincing anyone he’s a Zionist. The old Bennett-Lapid alliance was characterized as an alliance of winners. Their new alliance is an alliance of losers.
The merger of Yesh Atid with Bennett 2026 makes the Likud campaign easier. More convincing. If Bennett had continued crossing the threshold in polls—something that before the merger wasn’t certain at all—Netanyahu would have had to deal with him, to convince his remaining supporters that Bennett is still Bennett. A crook stays a crook. And that the next government under his leadership together with Mansour Abbas could be waiting around the corner. Today, after the merger announcement, Likud no longer has anyone to convince. It’s clear and guaranteed in advance.
Other left-wing candidates, like Yair Golan and Gadi Eisenkot, are applauding the merger, but will soon discover the move comes mainly at their expense. Their hope that a significant party led by Bennett will succeed in bringing votes from the right to their ranks is detached from reality and a completely mistaken reading of the map.
Earlier, the office of former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett released a statement:
“Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and former Prime Minister Yair Lapid will announce the first step in the process of fixing the State of Israel: the merger of the Yesh Atid party and the Bennett 2026 party into a united party led by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
The move unites the reform bloc, ends internal battles, and allows all efforts to be invested in a decisive victory in the upcoming elections and leading Israel to the necessary reform.”