From the Liveblog of
Monday, May 11, 2026
Liberman: No immediate plans for Yisrael Beytenu to merge with Eisenkot’s Yashar party
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"
Avigdor Liberman says that there are no immediate plans for his Yisrael Beytenu party to merge with Gadi Eisenkot’s new Yashar party, despite ongoing contacts between them.
Asked at a press conference ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset if he would be willing to take second place to Eisenkot should the two leaders enter a political union, given that Eisenkot is polling ahead of him, Liberman replies, “At the moment there is no point in any move toward a merger. These things are done at the last minute.”
“We sat, we talked at length, we sit all the time, and we said that for now, everyone is trying to maximize their own strength… Right before the elections we will sit down and decide: Is there a point in a merger?”
While the two politicians have not confirmed any plans to run on a unified slate, they did announce in a joint statement on Thursday that they were working to expand cooperation ahead of the election.
Liberman declares that he intends to be the next prime minister of Israel, claiming to reporters that he believes he is “capable of achieving a decisive victory on all… fronts” and that, unlike Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “with me, the October 7 massacre would never have happened.”
“What we are also seeing clearly is a government that for two and a half years hasn’t known how to reach a decisive victory on any front, not against Hezbollah, not against Hamas, not against the Houthis, not against the Iranians, and not against crime. It won’t know how to reach a decisive victory five years from now, either,” he says.
The Times of Israel Community.