Former prime minister Naftali Bennett announced on Wednesday that he has appointed Yonatan Shalev, a 23-year-old military reservist activist, as the newest addition to his party’s electoral slate ahead of the 2026 national election.

Shalev is the co-founder of the Shoulder to Shoulder movement, which represents reservists and young soldiers and advocates for Haredi conscription. In a joint statement with Bennett’s party, the group said the party was its “moral and natural home” and that it had joined Bennett “because only he has proven that he will fix Israel and build a better future for the youth of Israel.”

Bennett, for his part, said that “when Israel’s leadership collapsed” after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, terror attack, “the young generation stood up, fought and saved the State of Israel. We discovered that we have the best young generation in the history of the State of Israel. For the day after, we need the energies of this wonderful generation to lift Israel up again.”

Shalev fought in the Israel Defense Forces following the October 7 attack. His appointment was immediately welcomed by Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who together with Bennett formed a government that unseated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2021-2022. Both men’s parties are hoping to defeat Netanyahu at the ballot box again this year.

“Congratulations to Yonatan Shalev on entering politics! Under the ‘Covenant of Brothers,’ that automatically makes you my nephew,” Lapid tweeted, in a reference to his alliance with Bennett.

While the announcement did not state what spot Shalev was being given on Bennett’s slate, it did say that the political newcomer will be at the “forefront” of the electoral list and leadership of the party, which is, for now, called Bennett 2026.

Shalev is a harsh critic of the government, accusing it in a podcast interview this month of a lack of interest “in citizens who come with a different set of values ​​and with opposing opinions.”

“I think that in the State of Israel today there is a lack of moral, social, and human norms,” he continued, arguing that in the Knesset there are “elected officials who are not worthy” of their positions and who are engaged in “cheap politics.”

He mentioned the Haredi draft exemption law, which would enshrine sweeping exemptions from conscription for yeshiva students and, he said, is “jeopardizing the future” of young Israelis.

Bennett has also long been critical of efforts to exempt yeshiva students from military service, declaring last month that, if elected, he would launch an investigation into “the sabotage of Haredi enlistment.”

He has also pledged to advanced a “flagship law” providing a generous benefit package for soldiers and reservists, while vowing that “those who choose not to serve simply won’t receive anything.”

Earlier this week, Bennett announced the first two members of his slate, besides himself: Keren Terner, who resigned as director general of the Finance Ministry in 2021, and Liran Avisar Ben-Horin, who resigned as director general of the Communications Ministry in 2023.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party slammed Bennett over his choice of Terner, asserting that she was a member of the Brothers in Arms movement, which Likud said “encouraged refusal to serve in the IDF, thereby weakening Israel and harming our security.”

“Just as he did last time, Bennett will again form a government with the left and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Likud charged, referring to the inclusion of Mansour Abbas’s Islamist party Ra’am in the Bennett-Lapid coalition. Abbas has said that Netanyahu had also courted his party while trying to form a coalition.

In response, Bennett’s party threatened to sue Likud for defamation, stating that Terner had “never been a member of the Brothers in Arms organization and has never been involved in any way in calls for refusal to serve.”

Bennett, who led the now-defunct right-wing Yamina party, has been out of office since the 2022 collapse of his politically diverse coalition government, which in 2021 ousted Netanyahu from the premiership after 12 consecutive years, following a period of political turmoil that saw four national elections held in three years.

He has long been seen as the leading challenger to Netanyahu, and his party has consistently been projected to receive the most votes of any anti-Netanyahu faction, and the second-most overall. According to a Kan poll released last week, his party would receive 19 seats out of the 120 in the Knesset if elections were held today, while Likud would get 25.

According to a 2025 Channel 12 report, Bennett has reportedly structured his party so that he will be able to maintain complete control over it for the better part of the coming decade in an effort to prevent a repeat of the defections that brought down his previous government.

The report stated that Bennett 2026’s regulations stipulate that Bennett will not only remain party chairman until 2034 but that he will also hold the position of Knesset faction manager. In addition, he will retain a monopoly on the selection of candidates for the party’s electoral list, personally choose ministers in any potential government, and appoint members of his party to Knesset committees.

Bennett’s government fell apart in 2022 following the defection of multiple Knesset members from his party.

Ariela Karmel contributed to this report.

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