The last several weeks have seen a series of announcements by disaffected nationalist politicians establishing new parties aimed at drawing votes away from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud and forcing a compromise with Zionist opposition parties to create what one described as a “broad Zionist unity government.”

Israeli politics has long been divided into two camps, that of Netanyahu’s Likud and its associated supporters in the far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties and the so-called Change Bloc of Zionist opposition factions such as former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad and Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar.

However, the leaders of this new “Third Bloc” aim to shift this dynamic,  hoping to replace the ultra-Orthodox as the country’s electoral kingmakers and broker a deal which would allow them to “rein in the extremists,” conscript the Haredim and break the ongoing deadlock in which neither the pro- nor anti-Netanyahu has enough support to form a government following the October 27 election.

But who are the members of this “Third Bloc” and how likely is it that they can actually accomplish their goal?

‘A Zionist, statesmanlike government’

Former center-right communications minister Yoaz Hendel and recently resigned Blue and White lawmaker Chili Tropper certainly believe so.

Addressing supporters in Jerusalem last Wednesday, the pair officially launched the campaign of their new joint party, dubbed Zionist Home-The Reservists, promising to “establish a Zionist, statesmanlike government.”

Hendel, a political scientist and former communications minister who was once an aide to Netanyahu, is one of several right-leaning figures who have criticized the government’s bid to codify the Haredi exemption from military service, but who have not explicitly ruled out being part of a coalition with the premier.

Tropper, who left Benny Gantz’s Blue and White this summer as part of a wave of defections as the center-right party hovered at or beneath the electoral threshold, and Hendel conditioned their participation in any coalition on “the establishment of a Zionist government and the passage of a conscription law” — while one party source told The Times of Israel that they want “to become the kingmaker and determine the makeup of the next government.”

Only a day after Hendel and Tropper launched their campaign, former Likud ministers Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein formally rolled out their own new faction, Unity, at an event in Tel Aviv as part of an effort to capture Likud voters dissatisfied with the direction the party has gone under Netanyahu — bemoaning the current state of their former party and promising to only join a broad consensus government.

Erdan, 55, first entered the Knesset with Likud in 2003 and went on to serve as public security, communications and regional cooperation minister, and from 2020-2024 held the role of Israeli ambassador to the United Nations.

Edelstein — a former refusenik who moved to Israel from the Soviet Union in 1987 — first entered the Knesset with the Yisrael B’Aliyah party in 1996 before it merged with Likud in 2003. He has served as health minister, speaker of the Knesset, and chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

He was ousted as FADC chairman by his own party last year after he insisted on tougher sanctions against Haredi draft dodgers, and last month he announced he was quitting Likud because he opposed its bid to legislate military draft exemptions for yeshiva students.

The lawmakers did not, however, explicitly rule out sitting with Prime........

© The Times of Israel