Eisenkot welcomes Bennett-Lapid union but says: To win, we need to bring in more votes

Former IDF chief, Yashar party leader not joining slate, but Bennett says ‘door is open’; Netanyahu’s Likud: Lapid, Bennett joining ‘terror-supporting Muslim Brotherhood alliance’

Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot, a major figure in the alliance seeking to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Sunday welcomed the union of former prime minister Naftali Bennett and Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, as a move toward the “shared goal” of forming a new government.

Bennett and Lapid’s new list, dubbed “Together,” will not officially merge their factions into one party but will produce a united list in the election, currently scheduled for October. The two former prime ministers have joined forces previously, leading a short-lived coalition of right-wing, centrist and left-wing parties in 2021-2022.

“The goal of winning the critical elections ahead of us is a shared one,” Eisenkot wrote, calling Bennett and Lapid “partners” and pledging to continue acting “responsibly and wisely” to achieve “the victory and change required for the State of Israel.”

Speaking later Sunday, Eisenkot said the two leaders “are my allies,” adding: “The only goal before me, and I said this to both of them this evening, is the victory of a Zionist, nationally responsible coalition — a coalition of hope in the most critical election Israel has had since its establishment, and I hope this will be the goal of all partners.”

He seemed to suggest the union might find it hard to draw votes away from the pro-Netanyahu right, however. “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, a former IDF chief of staff and member of the emergency government following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught, did not say he would join Lapid and Bennett in their new joint slate, but “the door is definitely open” for him, an opposition source with knowledge of the matter told The Times of Israel.

“He could be a central player in this,” the source said, adding that “we certainly hope he joins.” Bennett later confirmed his desire to recruit Eisenkot, saying: “Our door is open for you too.”

Democrats party chairman Yair Golan also welcomed the union of Bennett and Lapid, saying he is in favor of “every unification in the bloc,” and pledged that he would join them in a future coalition, with his party part of the “sturdy democratic and liberal backbone in the next government.”

Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman also praised the move, wishing the new joint slate success, and emphasizing that “we must remember that the goal is to replace the October 7 government,” in reference to the current government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Blue and White leader Benny Gantz also welcomed the union, and said that only a “broad Zionist unity government” that excludes extremists can move the country forward. Gantz has previously sought to promote the formation of a broad-based government and, unlike other opposition parties, is open to sitting with Netanyahu.

While the opposition leaders all voiced support for Bennett and Lapid, Netanyahu’s Likud party slammed the union, tweeting an AI-generated image of Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas driving a car with the two politicians in the back seat.

“In any case, Bennett and Lapid will go with the terrorist-supporting Muslim Brotherhood alliance again,” Likud said on X, in reference to the controversial joining of Abbas’s Islamist party in the 2021-2022 coalition.

“The Bennett-Lapid ‘brotherhood alliance’ is back to selling the country to the Islamic movement,” declared National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

“Bennett was a radical leftist and will remain a radical leftist,” the far-right minister added.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also got in on the criticism, posting a picture of Bennett and Lapid smiling alongside Abbas on X, writing: “I’m not telling the left how to split their votes. [This is the] Abbas servant alliance.”

Shas chairman Aryeh Deri called the union a “brotherhood of hatred,” saying: “A frightened Bennett is joining forces with Lapid, in an attempt to bring back the destructive government of the extreme left and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

“Their common denominator is hatred of tradition and Second Israel — an attack on Jewish identity, settlement and Torah scholars,” he said, using a term some apply to Mizrahi Jewish communities, claiming they have been kept away from the centers of political and economic power by an Ashkenazi elite.

Bennett and Lapid’s short-lived government instituted a number of religious reforms, since repealed through Shas’s efforts, which weakened ultra-Orthodox control over the religious bureaucracy and empowered more liberal streams of Orthodoxy.