Gantz calls for no Haredi or Arab parties in next government

Yoaz Hendel’s Reservists teams up with ex-minister Chili Tropper ahead of election

Bereaved family members Shira Shapiro and Elyasaf Peretz also joining new alliance, says Hendel; Smotrich’s Religious Zionism to hold primary on July 26 as polls show it shedding support

Ahead of the Knesset’s expected dissolution next week and general elections in October, Yoaz Hendel’s Reservists party announced Tuesday it would join forces with former Blue and White MK Chili Tropper as well as bereaved family members Shira Shapiro and Elyasaf Peretz.

Channel 12 news reported the alliance will be called Yesodot Yisrael (Foundations of Israel), with the agreement putting Tropper at the top of the joint list and Hendel at No. 2. The following spots on the electoral slate will reportedly be selected by the two of them in alternating order.

The network said Hendel and Tropper want to join a broad Zionist government, but if they cannot broker one, they would agree to join a government made up of parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as long as no Arab-majority parties are included.

Separately, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party announced it would hold primaries on July 26 to determine its slate for the next election, which must take place by October 27.

Hendel, a former communications minister who was once an aide to Netanyahu, is one of several right-leaning figures who have criticized the government’s bid to codify the Haredi exemption from military service, but who do not rule out governing with the premier.

Polls have shown Hendel’s party falling short of the electoral threshold if it runs on its own, but possibly entering the Knesset — and serving as kingmaker — if it teams up with similarly minded figures.

At a joint press conference with Hendel on Tuesday night, Tropper said the two “are setting up a Zionist home. A home for Israelis who are full of pain and hope, who want to work together to make things better here. A home that will not be torn apart from within. A home in which everybody will serve.”

Hendel said he and Tropper “understand that a new generation of leaders is needed — a generation of warriors, a generation that takes responsibility.”

“Chili and I are committed to [taking] responsibility,” he said. “This country is on our shoulders. At a time when everybody is fleeing responsibility, we are responsible.”

Hendel’s party had said in an earlier statement that teaming up with Tropper is “the first step toward creating a significant new Zionist political force” that seeks to “lead to a broad Zionist government” and represent “those who serve, volunteer, fight, perform reserve duty and contribute through action.”

“To me,” Hendel said in the statement, “Chili represents the best of Israeli society” and the alliance with him is “what can pull the State of Israel out of the current deadlock.”

He confirmed that the alliance would also include Shapiro, whose son Aner was killed swatting grenades launched by terrorists in the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023; and Peretz, whose brothers Uriel and Eliraz were killed fighting in Lebanon in 1998 and in Gaza in 2010, respectively.

Shapiro and Peretz are “two of the best people there are, who’ve experienced the war in the most personal and painful place possible,” Hendel said.

Shapiro, an urban planner, left her senior position at the Heritage Ministry so she could enter politics, Hebrew media reported last month. Peretz has reportedly served over 400 days in reserve duty since the October 7 attack sparked the war in Gaza.

Alliance with Tropper ends months of speculation

Tropper’s alliance with Hendel ended months of speculation about Tropper’s political future, after the former culture and sports minister bolted Benny Gantz’s flagging Blue and White party in May.

Other lawmakers who left Blue and White later joined the Yashar party, led by Gantz’s erstwhile ally Gadi Eisenkot, who polls show is the lead candidate to unseat Netanyahu.

Eisenkot wrote on X that he “congratulates my friend Chili Tropper” for joining forces with Hendel.

“Chili is an experienced, unifying leader who deserves to play a central role in the national rehabilitation Israel so urgently needs, and to be an important voice in the Zionist, statesmanlike government we will establish,” Eisenkot said.

Gantz also applauded Tropper and Hendel for “joining the effort we are leading to establish the bloc of Israel.”

“The coming elections will result only in a broad Zionist government — a government that doesn’t rely on Arab or Haredi parties,” Gantz wrote on X.

Hebrew media reported this week on an impasse in merger talks that Hendel’s party was holding with the emerging alliance of Blue and White leader Gantz and former Fire and Rescue chief Dedy Simhi, a Channel 12 pundit whose son Guy was also killed fighting on October 7.

Religious Zionism to hold primaries on July 26

Religious Zionism will elect a candidate slate from No. 2 downward on July 26, the party announced Tuesday, after its central committee reaffirmed Smotrich as party leader during an internal leadership vote in September.

The deadline for candidates to register for the Religious Zionism primary is July 21, with voting open to all registered members.

In a letter to party members, Religious Zionism Director-General Yehuda Wald said the accelerated timetable was chosen in light of the Knesset’s expected dissolution on July 17 and the ensuing recess.

Among the new faces vying for a place on the Religious Zionism electoral list is Zvika Mor, whose son Eitan was abducted in the October 7 attack and later freed in a hostage deal.

Mor, who joined Religious Zionism in May, led the Tikva Forum, a small, hawkish group of hostage families. Unlike the larger Hostages and Missing Families Forum, Mor’s Tikva Forum consistently opposed partial hostage release agreements with Hamas that involved the release of Palestinian security prisoners and temporary ceasefires in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the future of Religious Zionism MK Moshe Solomon remained unclear, after Smotrich removed him from all Knesset committees for breaking coalition discipline and voting against a quasi-constitutional government bill that would equate Torah study with military service.

Religious Zionism is one of only a handful of parties in Israel whose members elect their electoral slate in an internal primary vote. Other parties that hold primaries are Netanyahu’s Likud, the left-leaning Democrats party, Arab-majority communist party Hadash and Palestinian nationalist party Balad, which did not pass the electoral threshold in the last election.

Religious Zionism, which currently holds seven Knesset seats, has spent months polling below or just above the electoral threshold, though some recent surveys show it garnering four or five of the Knesset’s 120 seats.

Much of the party’s collapse in polls has been attributed to its constituents’ anger over the party’s support for the government’s bid to enshrine the Haredi military service exemption. Religious Zionist communities contribute a disproportionately high proportion of troops in combat and reserve IDF units.

The government, which includes ultra-Orthodox parties, has scrambled to enshrine the decades-long exemption after the High Court in June 2024 ruled that it lacked legal basis, following petitions that pointed to the IDF’s personnel crisis amid the post-October 7 conflicts.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.