MK Elazar Stern suggests he may leave Yesh Atid and join Eisenkot’s Yashar if parties don’t merge

Yesh Atid lawmaker Elazar Stern says that if he remains in politics, he will align himself with former IDF chief and Yashar party leader Gadi Eisenkot, suggesting that if Eisenkot opts not to join Yesh Atid chief Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett’s new Together slate, he may leave Yesh Atid — after more than a decade in the party — for Yashar.

“If I remain in Israeli politics, I will be wherever Gadi Eisenkot is,” Stern says in an interview with Channel 12.

Eisenkot has welcomed Bennett and Lapid’s new union, calling them “allies,” but suggested the union might find it hard to draw votes away from the pro-Netanyahu right.

Stern says that regardless of whether the Yashar leader ultimately joins the slate, he is “certain that Gadi Eisenkot has done and will continue to do [what’s needed]. There is no one in Israeli politics whom people trust more than Gadi to do everything for the good of the state.”

“There may be good people like Gadi Eisenkot, but there is no one better than him,” he says.

He adds that he has spoken with Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid about his intentions, while praising his current party as “the best party in the Knesset.”

“These are the best and hardest working MKs in the Knesset, and it is to Lapid’s credit,” he says.

Following the interview, Stern tells The Times of Israel that “at this time, there is no change” in his party affiliation and that he “remains a member of Yesh Atid.”

He adds that he will “continue to act from within the party to promote unity and block the advancement of the draft-evasion law.”

The veteran lawmaker has served as a Yesh Atid MK since 2015, after previously serving in Tzipi Livni’s Hatnua party.