When Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett first joined forces in 2013, entering the governing coalition together, it was unclear exactly what their alliance was based on.

Lapid’s party was secularist, Bennett’s religious Zionist. Lapid, at the time, called for a “divorce” from the Palestinians. Bennett ran on annexing parts of the West Bank. They had some common ground on policy, but Lapid defined his party as centrist. Bennett was firmly to the right of the election’s conservative winner, Benjamin Netanyahu.

More than anything, their partnership, dubbed the “Brothers’ Alliance,” seemed like it was based on vibes: Both men were young (Bennett 40, Lapid 49), both were relative newcomers to the political scene and both tried to offer a fresh alternative to Likud and Labor, the two parties that had historically dominated nearly all of Israeli politics.

Their partnership made a comeback in 2021, when they formed an unwieldy coalition to briefly unseat Netanyahu. Now, ahead of another election, they’ve become closer than ever, merging their two parties into a new slate called “Together” that will be led by Bennett and that, they hope, will carry the vote.

There are pragmatic reasons for Lapid and Bennett to unite: Lapid’s Yesh Atid holds 24 seats in the Knesset, which affords it oodles of public campaign funds. The merger has also catapulted the party up in the polls, and saved Lapid from the danger of garnering too few votes to win reelection.

But the Bennett-Lapid bromance appears to stretch beyond pragmatism — they seem to actually like each other.

Will it help them win? Once again, Bennett and Lapid are pitching Israel on a different kind of politics, promising to be unifiers in an age of polarization, something surveys show many Israelis are hungry for. And in an era when politics is dominated by larger-than-life personalities (like Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump), their union is meant to embody a different kind of leadership, one of warm consensus across ideological camps.

“With politicians, you always have to be careful when you talk about things such as friendship, but as far as politicians go, it’s a friendship,” said Shmuel Rosner, a political analyst and editor of the Madad, an Israeli data and polling firm. He added later, “I think people look at this relationship with [Bennett and] Lapid and they do see it as something that makes both of them very human, and in some way more endearing.”

It might not be enough to deliver victory. Bennett, who has positioned himself as a bridge across Israel’s religious-secular divide, is a polarizing figure, having broken with the right in 2021 to form a government with left-wing and Arab lawmakers. Lapid, who has always called himself a centrist, is seen by many as a standard-bearer of the left. And by uniting with each other, they may turn off portions of voters who find the other impalatable.

Meanwhile, a third opposition candidate who has not joined the Bennett-Lapid union may in fact be the best bet to unite Israel’s war-weary society: Former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot.

Bennett, Rosner said, “will certainly try to present himself as someone that can get all Israelis to communicate and not to........

© The Times of Israel