Opposition leader Yair Lapid told former prime minister Naftali Bennett that he is willing to drop from second to third place on the list of their joint party, Together, in an effort to bring on board Yashar! Party leader Gadi Eisenkot, Yesh Atid sources confirmed to The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.
According to a source, Lapid said that his personal placement is far less important than the need to unite forces and win the elections.
The invitation follows Sunday’s announcement by Bennett and Lapid of their new unified party, Together, during which they also publicly called on Eisenkot to join them.
Eisenkot has not accepted Bennett and Lapid’s request to unite and instead called on the opposition bloc on Sunday to focus on securing as many votes as possible.
Ten out of the top 24 spots on the Together Party were agreed to be allocated to Lapid's Yesh Atid
His Yashar! Party has emerged as a leading party in the opposition bloc seeking to replace Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in elections expected to take place no later than October.
Eisenkot had previously been offered to join Bennett’s party, but said last month that he declined, as he did not want to serve as second-in-command.
The details of the agreement between Lapid and Bennett have not yet been openly published. Lapid is currently second on the party’s list, without Eisenkot’s addition.
MK Vladimir Beliak (Yesh Atid) told the Post on Monday that the merger between Bennett and Lapid is “at least for now, a technical bloc, meaning it’s a bloc of two parties or two lists.”
“Yesh Atid is not dissolving. Yesh Atid will continue to exist,” he added.
Ten out of the top 24 spots on the Together Party were agreed to be allocated to Lapid’s Yesh Atid, according to a KAN Reshet Bet report on Tuesday.
This allocation is expected to allow Lapid to split from Bennett immediately after the election, as he will have more than one-third of the party members elected, the report added.
Lapid requested to reserve the right to split from Bennett after the election, according to KAN.
“Bennett is happy to give Lapid almost half the list because ‘he doesn’t have people,’” a source involved in the joint list negotiations was cited by KAN as saying.
Polls taken by Israel’s public broadcaster on Monday after the merger found that Netanyahu’s Likud would remain the largest party with 27 seats, and the new Together Party would gain 24 seats.
A poll taken by KAN before the merger predicted that Bennett would gain 19 seats and Yesh Atid would gain six.
Eisenkot’s Yashar! Party is predicted to win 15 seats, per KAN’s latest poll.
However, a poll published by Walla on Monday found that Together would win 27 seats, while Likud would gain 28.
A Walla poll from before the merger found that Likud and “Bennett 2026” would each gain 24 seats, while Bennett and Lapid’s parties running separately would gain a total of 31 seats.