On April 26, former Prime Ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid announced the merger of the “Bennett 2026″ and “Yesh Atid” factions. Speaking from identical podiums at the Dan Accadia Hotel in Herzliya, the two leaders launched a unified electoral list named “Together” (Beyachad). Under the new structural arrangement, Bennett assumes the top position on the Knesset candidates slate, with Lapid ceding his leadership role to take the No. 2 spot.

The initial policy platform introduced during the evening press conference centered on institutional reform. Immediately stated policy goals included the establishment of a State Commission of Inquiry into the October 7 attacks, the imposition of an eight-year term limit for the office of the prime minister, and the implementation of a universal conscription law.

Bennett framed the alliance as a step in overcoming increased polarization in Israel. “The era of division is over,” he declared in his speech. He also positioned the new party as the key to removing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from office. “After 30 years, it is time to part with Netanyahu and open a new chapter for Israel,” Bennett said.

Lapid positioned his forfeiture of the top position as a necessary concession to secure a victory over Netanyahu’s coalition. “To win the elections, the entire Israeli center must rally behind Naftali Bennett,” Lapid proclaimed.

The announcement of the Bennett-Lapid merger sparked swift and polarized reactions across the Israeli political spectrum.

Within the opposition bloc, reactions ranged from optimism to caution.

Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot welcomed the alliance as a step toward their “shared goal” of forming a new government. However, he maintained his political independence, warning that structural reorganization alone was insufficient: “For this victory to happen, we need to bring in more votes; that is our only test. Every union must be judged by that.”

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman also praised the move, wishing the new slate success while emphasizing the bloc’s primary objective, saying, “We must remember that the goal is to replace the October 7 government.”

On the opposition’s left flank, The Democrats chairman, Yair Golan, embraced the development. He stated he favored “every unification in the bloc.”

Despite the positive reception of the announcement on the center-left, some analysts view the merger as a tactical misstep. Professor Gideon Rahat, senior fellow at the Israeli Democracy Institute and professor of political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, noted the risk of presenting a single target for the incumbent. “Strategically, I’m not sure that this is the smartest move, because Netanyahu is very good when it comes to one-on-one campaigning. It’s an advantage if he has a clear opponent,” Rahat told JNS.

On the right, the incumbent coalition reacted with uniform hostility. The Likud party released a statement tying the new list to Arab factions, asserting, “In any case, Bennett and Lapid will go with the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood alliance again.” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich dismissed the realignment entirely, remarking, “I’m not telling the left how to split their votes.”

Foundations of the merger

The 2026 Beyachad merger represents the third major structural alignment between Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, built upon a long history of collaboration.

Bennett and Lapid have already allied twice to reshape Israel’s government, setting aside ideological differences to consolidate power. In their 2013 “Pact of Brothers,” they refused to join Prime Minister Netanyahu’s coalition independently, forcing a joint entry. This strategic maneuver successfully excluded ultra-Orthodox factions from the government and secured the Finance Ministry for Lapid. Later, in 2021, following four inconclusive elections, they engineered an eight-party coalition spanning far-left, right-wing and Islamist factions. To secure right-wing backing and finalize the coalition, Lapid pragmatically agreed to a rotation agreement, allowing Bennett to serve as prime minister first, while Lapid became alternate prime minister and foreign minister.

The current alliance also brings several pragmatic benefits to both Lapid and Bennett. Before the merger announcement, aggregate polling indicated that Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party was facing a severe electoral decline, projected to fall from its 24 mandates in the outgoing Knesset to between four and seven seats, leaving it hovering near the electoral threshold (3.25%, or four seats).

Dr. Gayil Talshir from the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University noted that this decline drove the timeline. “The initiator of the move is actually Lapid, because Lapid was losing ground,” Talshir told JNS. “In last week’s polls, he got between six and seven mandates, which means that he could have very quickly fallen below the threshold.”

Conversely, Bennett consistently emerged in polls as a highly viable candidate; however, he faced a critical logistical deficit. Having sat out the previous elections, he possessed zero outgoing seats, no active party infrastructure, and no state campaign funding.

The Israeli party financing law distributes state campaign funds through “funding units” tied directly to a party’s representation in the outgoing legislature. With the Central Elections Committee allocating 593 million shekels (about $200 million) for the execution of the 2026 elections (due to be held by Oct. 27), Yesh Atid’s 24 outgoing seats provide a massive financial incentive for the merger.

In this sense, Lapid traded the paramount leadership position to ensure the political survival of his faction, while Bennett gained immediate access to a state-funded campaign apparatus and Yesh Atid’s established, disciplined national field organization. Rahat observed that “one is bringing the votes, the other is bringing the money and the organization. That’s one of the reasons why they are running together.”

Strategically, the alliance also serves as an important measure to consolidate opposition leadership against internal rivals, most notably former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot. Before the Bennett-Lapid merger, Eisenkot’s newly formed Yashar party was actively gaining in the anti-Netanyahu centrist vote, consistently polling at 14 to 15 mandates. Bennett and Eisenkot were competing for the same demographic: security-focused, centrist voters disillusioned with the incumbent government but structurally unwilling to vote for left-wing parties.

By absorbing Lapid’s residual base, Bennett immediately eclipsed Eisenkot’s polling numbers, reestablishing himself as the dominant, hegemonic figure within the opposition bloc. This consolidation serves a crucial perceptual purpose for the electorate.

Talshir explained that “even though in Israeli politics, what is important is getting to the majority out of 120 seats, not the biggest party, the psychological effect is that people want to vote for the winner, which pushes them to the bigger party.”

The urgency of unifying the center is reflected in Lapid’s readiness to make further strategic concessions. He notified Bennett that he was willing to drop to the number No. 3 position on the joint electoral slate if that demotion would guarantee the absorption of Eisenkot’s Yashar faction into the broader Beyachad merger.

While ensuring the Beyahad party dominates the opposition bloc, Bennett has also attempted to minimize bleeding votes from his right flank toward Likud. His alliance with Lapid poses a risk, as Lapid’s support for a Palestinian state might cross a red line for anti-Netanyahu Likudniks who might have sought shelter in Bennett’s party. During their joint campaign event, Bennett assured voters, “We will safeguard the lands of our country and will not hand over a single centimeter to the enemy.” The new party’s color scheme, Blue, White and Green, is also a callback to Bennett’s old Jewish Home party, which was once a bastion of the Religious Zionist movement.

To further sanitize the Beyachad list for right-wing Likudniks, Bennett has promised not to form a coalition with Arab parties. It is important to note that Bennett broke a similar promise made during the 2021 campaign. However, this was only done after Netanyahu’s Likud tried and failed to form a similar alliance.

Impact of the merger

The immediate electoral impact of the Beyachad merger is inconclusive, according to Israel’s primary polling institutions, generating two mutually exclusive models of the 2026 political map.

Most surveys, such as the Kantar or Midgam polls, conducted in the aftermath of the merger, indicate that Beyahad and Likud are still running neck and neck, with most placing them within 1-2 Knesset seats of each other, at around 26 each. Almost every one of these polls further indicates that Bennett and Lapid have 1-2 fewer seats combined than they did separately. Despite this, the new party has effectively left Eisenkot’s Yashar party in the dust with a 7-14 seat lead according to most polls.

However, beneath this topline opposition success, the underlying math remains stagnant. Only one poll (Yossi Taktika) of the eight conducted since the merger has the Jewish opposition with a 61-seat majority, the bare minimum needed to form a coalition. Almost all other polls have neither the coalition nor the opposition able to form a government without the Arab parties. In this sense, the data indicate that the alliance has largely reorganized existing opposition votes into a larger central vessel rather than extracting new defectors from Netanyahu’s incumbent coalition, which remains highly stable at around 50 seats.

This reality is not without precedent. Rahat emphasized the fallacy of unified lists, stating, “It’s very important not to think that if you are united, you’re going to get more support. This is not true. The elections in which we had the Bennett government, they actually ran separately, but all passed the electoral threshold, so they got more seats.”

However, an inverse reality emerges from the data published by Shlomo Filber and his Direct Polls. Unlike the randomized phone sampling employed by traditional firms such as Midgam, Filber relies on SMS text messages and digital respondent panels, leading to significantly different results from other surveys. Filber’s polling company has had Netanyahu’s coalition with a dominant 64-66 seats since August 2025 and above the minimum 61 seats since September 2024. Filber polls in the aftermath of the merger actually indicate that the move had a significant impact on the electoral map, with Bennett and Lapid gaining six seats due to the merger relative to the last poll before the union. However, the Filber poll still has Netanyahu’s coalition at a comfortable 64 seats, with most of Bennett’s new votes coming from Eisenkot.

The accuracy of the Filber polls data has been frequently questioned due to his long-term affiliation with Netanyahu. As a former director-general of the Communications Ministry under Netanyahu and an ongoing state witness in the prime minister’s Case 4000 corruption trial, he is seen as a political operator.

Talshir was blunt in her assessment, stating, “Filber was and is Netanyahu’s right hand …, his poll numbers are part of the campaign to boost Likud morale.”

However, Filber also has a well-established track record of accurately calling elections. During the 2022 election cycle, Direct Polls was virtually the only major firm to accurately detect the underlying right-wing vote mobilization that delivered Netanyahu’s 64-seat victory, while traditional pollsters consistently and incorrectly projected a 60-60 parliamentary deadlock.

Talshir observed that there is methodological merit to his numbers, noting, “Filber is right in several of his assertions. … We know that closer to the election, there is an effect of going back home. With people who are traditionally Likud voters, and now say that they may vote for the opposition, the nearer we get to the election, the more chances that they will change their mind.”

Furthermore, she added, “Filber is saying, and rightly so, that the other pollsters don’t have a good feeling of what will happen with the ultra-Orthodox vote, because they always give the ultra-Orthodox fewer seats than they actually get.”

The future of the electoral map

The 2026 electoral map remains highly volatile and is likely to change significantly before the vote. According to Channel 12, a breakaway faction dubbed “Likud Bet” is actively considering breaking off from Likud. This initiative, spearheaded by traditional, institutional right-wing figures, including sitting Likud member of Knesset Yuli Edelstein, shows mounting dissatisfaction with Netanyahu’s leadership in the party.

Furthermore, a broad spectrum of smaller parties, including Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism and Yoaz Hendel’s newly formed “The Reservists,” are consistently failing to secure the minimum required votes to enter the Knesset while holding several seats’ worth of support between themselves. This threshold crisis practically guarantees an impending wave of secondary mergers before the final party lists are submitted.

In this sense, the Bennett-Lapid alliance is likely merely the first in a long series of political shifts and realignments that will become increasingly common as the elections approach. This particular merger has so far not shown a significant effect on the polling and has so far not pushed the opposition over the 61-seat finish line, though it likely did secure Bennett’s dominant position in that camp. Ultimately, beyond factional positioning, the real impact of this and all other mergers can only be evaluated based on two principles: whether it saved a party from falling below the electoral threshold, and whether it brought in votes from the opposite camp.