Center-right ‘Reservists’ party says it won’t join coalition led by Netanyahu

By Sam Sokol 18 August 2026, 7:38 pm

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Sam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

MK Chili Tropper attends a plenum session at the assembly hall of the Knesset, in Jerusalem, August 14, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Chili Tropper, chair of the new center-right Zionist Home-Reservists party, declares explicitly that the party will not join a governing coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The statement marks a shift for the party, which was established in advance of the October 27 election. Previously, Tropper had said his party would not be the one to secure a majority in the Knesset for a Netanyahu-led coalition. He has also said anyone in power during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught needs to resign, a group that includes the prime minister.

But this is the first time he has said openly that the party “will not sit in a government led by Netanyahu.”

Addressing voters in a video message posted to X, the lawmaker commits to “only be part of a Zionist government” and pledges to “make a genuine effort to expand the government as much as possible with parties that accept its principles.” Those principles include ensuring that state benefits go to those who perform military or national service, rather than to ultra-Orthodox men who evade military service.

Zionist Home-The Reservists, established earlier this month as the result of a deal with former minister Yoaz Hendel, is a member of the so-called “Third Bloc” of center-right parties aimed at drawing votes away from Netanyahu’s Likud and forcing Zionist opposition parties to moderate in order to create a broad Zionist unity government.

Israeli politics has long been divided into two camps, supporting and opposing Netanyahu. The leaders of the “Third Bloc” aim to shift this dynamic, hoping to become electoral kingmakers between the two sides. Polls show, however, that none of the individual parties in the bloc would receive enough votes to enter the Knesset.

According to the Walla news site, Tropper’s position has drawn backlash within his own party as well as from Gilad Erdan, the leader of another “Third Bloc” party, whom it quotes as saying, “if you vote for Tropper, you get Yair Golan,” the leader of the left-wing Democrats party.