Lapid says he’s willing to drop to #3 spot on ‘Together’ slate in order to bring Eisenkot on board

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid has informed his political partner, former prime minister Naftali Bennett, that he is willing to go down to the third spot on their joint electoral slate if doing so would create the conditions for “a major merger with Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot,” according to a source in Lapid’s circle.

“Lapid states that his personal ranking is far less important than the need to unite forces and win the election,” the source states.

On Sunday evening, Lapid and Bennett announced that they were uniting their two parties into a combined ticket called “Together – Led by Bennett.”

Declaring that he and Lapid were “racing forward to victory,” Bennett also invited Yashar party chairman Gadi Eisenkot to join them, stating that “our door is open for you too.”

Eisenkot has thus far declined to join the new union despite the fact that he was first reported to have proposed the merger in January. He welcomed Bennett and Lapid’s new union, calling them “allies,” but seemed to suggest the union might find it hard to draw votes away from the pro-Netanyahu right.

“For this victory to happen, we need to bring in more votes — that is our only test. Every union must be judged by that,” Eisenkot said on Sunday.

He subsequently invited most anti-Netanyahu party leaders to convene to coordinate a path to a victory by a “Zionist majority” over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in elections set for October.

According to a Channel 12 poll released on Monday evening, in the event that Eisenkot would join Bennett and Lapid in a single list, their united party would garner 41 seats, but the overall balance of the blocs would remain unaffected, with 50 seats for the coalition, 60 for the Zionist opposition, and 10 for Arab parties.