From the Liveblog of
Sunday, January 25, 2026
Lapid says a union of opposition parties is advancing
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam 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"
A union of opposition parties ahead of the next election is advancing, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid declares, less than a week after Yashar! party chairman Gadi Eisenkot proposed a merger with Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Naftali Bennett’s new party.
Addressing party members at a Yesh Atid conference in Karmiel, Lapid says, “We need to go into the elections in an optimal way, with the right unions. We’re working on it, and it’s moving forward.”
Channel 12 news said both Lapid and Bennett have courted Eisenkot to join their slates, but he wants to bring them both together in a joint platform he believes could net some 40 seats in general elections later this year, overtaking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud as the largest Knesset faction.
A recent Zman Yisrael poll found that a merger of the three parties would yield the biggest Knesset party, far surpassing the ruling right-wing Likud, but that it would not significantly boost the overall anti-Netanyahu bloc or deliver it a majority when compared to a scenario in which they ran separately.
Speaking with The Times of Israel last July, after Eisenkot quit the Knesset, his political ally Matan Kahana said that he had been in touch with Bennett and would try to broker a political alliance.
The Times of Israel Community.