2 former Israel PMs unite to challenge Netanyahu in elections

TEL AVIV

Former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Yair Lapid have announced that they will run on a joint list in this year's elections, in a move aimed at unseating incumbent Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I am pleased to announce that tonight, together with my friend Yair Lapid, I am taking the most Zionist and patriotic step we have ever taken for our country," Bennett said in a joint televised statement with Lapid.

"Tonight, we are uniting and founding the Beyahad [Together] party under my leadership, a party that will lead to a great victory and open a new era for our beautiful country."

During the televised statement, Lapid said: "Bennett is a right-wing politician, but an honest one, and there is trust between us."

Earlier on April 26, Lapid, himself a former premier, had said he would join forces with Bennett.

"The move brings about the unification of the Repair Bloc, enabling all efforts to be focused on leading Israel toward the necessary repair," he wrote on X.

Bennett said that if elected, he would establish a national commission of inquiry into the failures leading up to the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack, something the current Netanyahu government has rejected.

Bennett and Lapid have been outspoken critics of Netanyahu's handling of the country's wars since that attack, with Lapid going so far as to label the recent two-week ceasefire agreed with Iran a "political disaster.”

Right-winger Bennett, a longtime supporter of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and Lapid previously formed a coalition government in June 2021.

It was replaced at the end of 2022 by the current administration led by Netanyahu, after Bennett said in June of that year that his coalition was no longer tenable and Lapid served a brief stint as caretaker prime minister.

Opinion polls suggest Bennett is the candidate best placed to defeat Netanyahu in the October vote.

Netanyahu plans to lead his party's list in the general election that must be held no later than the end of October.

At 76, the leader of the right-wing Likud party is Israel's longest-serving prime minister, with more than 18 cumulative years in office across multiple stints.