Lapid lashes out at opposition rivals for ‘fleeing’ Knesset, fight against Netanyahu

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid called out his fellow opposition heads Naftali Bennett, Gadi Eisenkot, and Yair Golan, accusing them of fleeing the Knesset and leaving his party alone in the fight against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition, the Kan public broadcaster reported Monday.

The report broadcast recordings from a Zoom call between Lapid and leaders of his Yesh Atid party on Sunday, in which Lapid responded to internal criticism that the opposition he leads has been weak.

“Today we are saying what we haven’t said all along out of solidarity with the camp, because we are tired of the fact that in return the camp has gone after us. Our answer is: where is the opposition really? Why are we the only ones who didn’t flee?” Lapid said.

Naming them one by one, he said that Bennett, his former partner and prime minister, left before the previous elections and isn’t currently a member of the Knesset; Eisenkot joined Netanyahu’s emergency wartime coalition during the war in Gaza and then resigned from the Knesset over the Haredi draft evasion law “because he didn’t get along with Benny Gantz”; and Yair Golan, the head of the left-wing Democrats party, is not a member of the Knesset.

“They are actually angry at those who stayed and fought instead of being angry at those who fled and disappeared,” he said

“So with all due respect, we were in all the struggles, including the regime coup, including finances, including the evasion law, including in the committees, including in the Knesset, and if anyone has any complaints, they should direct them to those who abandoned the campaign,” Lapid added.

After the publication of his remarks, Lapid posted on X on Monday calling Bennett and Eisenkot friends and partners, but reiterated his claim that Yesh Atid has been the only one “fighting against the worst government in the state’s history.”

“And why are you angry specifically at Yesh Atid, which stayed and fought, and not at all those who disappeared and left us to fight alone?” he added.

Polls released last week showed Netanyahu’s Likud party losing votes on the heels of an unpopular temporary ceasefire with Iran that US President Donald Trump announced.

With Likud’s dip, opposition parties would close in but still narrowly fail to secure a majority of the Knesset’s 120 seats if elections were held today.

A Kan poll gave the Zionist anti-Netanyahu parties 59 seats, a Channel 12 poll gave them 60, and a Channel 13 poll gave them 55.

Parliamentary elections are set to be held in October at the latest.