Two Centrist Israeli Parties Merge, Posing Threat To Netanyahu’s Reelection

Benjamin Netanyahu, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz Image by Getty/Forward Montage
A merger between two top-polling centrist parties is posing a major challenge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ten-year hold on the office, the Times of Israel reported.
After talks that lasted through the night, Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz agreed that their two parties — Yesh Atid and Israel Resilience, respectively — would merge for the upcoming election. The deal stipulated that, if elected, Gantz would be Prime Minister first, for two-and-a-half years, and then Lapid would take over.
Gantz is a former IDF Chief of Staff. Lapid, a former journalist, was Israel’s finance minister from 2013 to 2014. The merger agreement also added Gabi Ashkenazi, another former IDF Chief of Staff, to the merged slate.
“For the first time since 2009, we have a competitive race for the premiership and this is the result of the emergence of this new centrist force,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the non-partisan Israel Democracy Institute and a former member of the Knesset, told TOI.
The latest polling average compiled by the Israel Policy Forum predicted that Israel Resilience and Yesh Atid would get a combined 30 seats in the 120-seat parliament — the same amount as Netanyahu’s Likud.
The merger talks, long in the works, had stalled over the issue of who would be prime minister and for how long. Gantz’s Israel Resilience has been polling ahead of Yesh Atid, and Gantz reportedly wanted to secure the Prime Minister position for the duration of the term.
The decision came down to the wire, with 5 p.m. Thursday as the deadline for official entry into the April 9 elections.
Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. Contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @aefeldman
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion My Jewish moms group ousted me because I work for J Street. Is this what communal life has come to?
- 2
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 3
Fast Forward Suspected arsonist intended to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a sledgehammer, investigators say
- 4
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward Dozens of members of UK’s largest Jewish group sign letter condemning war in Gaza
-
Culture Actor Ben Platt says his Jewish identity is ‘not defined’ by Israel, showing a gap between him and his influential family
-
Fast Forward Shapiro house fire suspect targeted Jewish governor over pro-Israel stances, search warrant says
-
Fast Forward Jewish family killed in New York plane crash
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.