Israel’s far-right Naftali Bennett and centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid have announced that they will resume the alliance that last toppled Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in 2021, which at the time ended the latter’s 12-year hold on the country’s leadership.Speaking in Herzliya on Sunday, both former prime ministers addressed the waiting press pack from identical podiums, with Bennett telling reporters, “Tonight, we are uniting and establishing the ‘Together’ party under my leadership, a party that will lead to a great victory, and the opening of a new era for our beloved country.”Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listBut, according to a poll published by the Jerusalem Post on Monday, the new bloc is projected to win four fewer seats than the combined total of both politicians’ former parties if they were running separately, and would have one seat fewer than Netanyahu’s Likud Party.And while a significant proportion of Israelis are opposed to Netanyahu, the Bennett-Lapid alliance is not new, and has its own opponents. When the two opposition figures last joined forces in 2021 and won the election, they formed an unusually broad coalition spanning right-wing, centre, and left-wing parties, as well as – for the first time in Israeli government – a party representing Palestinian citizens of Israel.The self-styled “change government” was built on an agreement to rotate the premiership, with Bennett serving first as prime minister, before Lapid took over after 12 months.“They achieved quite a lot,” political pollster and former Netanyahu aide Mitchell Barak said. “As well a …
