Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, two former Israeli prime ministers who once toppled Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in 2021, announced on April 26 the formation of a new party called ‘Together – Led by Bennett’.
The merger of Bennett’s nascent ‘Bennett 2026’ party and Lapid’s Yesh Atid party aims to capitalise on the Israeli public’s weariness after non-stop wars in Gaza, Iran and Lebanon for two and a half years.
Led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Likud party was in power from 2009 to 2021. Then Bennett became prime minister in 2021 and was succeeded by Lapid in July 2022.
Netanyahu regained the premiership in December 2022 and has led the country since then as Israel’s longest-serving prime minister.
Bennett declared the creation of the new party as “the most Zionist and patriotic act we have ever done”, while promising to end the era of division.
But experts say there is little evidence that a possible Bennett-Lapid victory in the election, scheduled for October this year, will change Israel’s approach to the Palestinians.
The new alliance offers fresh packaging for the same Zionist security doctrine – continued occupation of Palestinian lands, illegal settlement expansion and high-intensity military assaults to maintain regional hegemony, they say.
Ozgur Dikmen, a PhD candidate studying Jewish politics of communal reform at Stanford University, tells TRT World that a potential victory for the newly formed alliance will represent a “significant transition in leadership style and internal governance”.
“(But) it would be a mistake to interpret this as a foundational departure from Israel’s long-standing approach to the occupation,” says Dikmen, an expert on Israeli politics.
The underlying Zionist security doctrine is expected to remain the “operational baseline” even in the event of a Bennett-Lapid victory.
“The packaging may shift towards more professionalised military management, but the commitment to the settlement growth is likely to persist,” he says.
Referring to new political realities post-October 7, 2023, he says Israeli society has become “significantly more hawkish across the political spectrum”.
As a result, domestic approval for military assaults against Palestinians remains high, as these are now framed as an “existential necessity” rather than mere policy.
Israel’s war against Iran, currently paused under a shaky ceasefire, has only reinforced this consensus. The Jewish-Israeli approval of the war effort reportedly exceeds 90 percent, Dikmen says.
“Any incoming leader, Bennett included, would find it politically undesirable to adopt a restrained posture without risking immediate domestic delegitimisation,” he says.
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Mehmet Rakipoglu, an associate professor at Mardin Artuklu University in Ankara, tells TRT World that Bennett was all for expanding occupation during his short stint as premier in 2021-22 – a fact that may foretell his policy towards Palestinians if he wins back the top office.
“I do not foresee any real departure (under a possible Bennett-Lapid setup) from the current government’s approach to occupation or settlement policies,” he says.
Bennett’s government approved tenders and planning for thousands of illegal settlement units, continuing a pattern documented by monitoring groups.
For Rakipoglu, the continuity in Israeli virulence towards Palestinians runs deeper than personalities.
“Whether it is Netanyahu or Bennett, when it comes to Zionism, all of them are the same,” he says.
Will Arab parties join in?
Experts highlight how the alliance’s populist rhetoric reinforces its strictly pro-Zionist identity.
After all, Bennett has already vowed to form a ‘Zionist government’.
Arik Rudnitzky of the Moshe Dayan Centre at Tel Aviv University tells TRT World that it is “too early to say” whether Arab citizens will accept the new Bennett-Lapid party.
Bennett made it clear that he would not rely on Arab parties because they are not Zionists, he says. This is despite the fact that the 2021 Bennett-Lapid government did secure support from Mansour Abbas’s United Arab party.
Rudnitzky says that the vast majority of Palestinian Israelis are expected to vote for Arab parties, while expecting that their representatives will make every effort to maximise political influence in exchange for budgets to beat crime and overcome economic neglect in Palestinian-Israeli communities.
“Arab voters expect Arab members of the Knesset to negotiate cooperation with the future government in exchange for actual achievements,” he says.
Polling data cited by the experts underscores the numbers game.
