Decades of conflict change people, and when it comes to Israelis, it has made some of us deeply cynical. We are cynical about politics, about leadership, and at times even about the very idea of what it means to live here.
Israelis were not born with that cynicism. It is the result of living under constant threat, of wars that never quite end, and of enemies – Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas – that never fully disappear. When danger is constant, the coping mechanism is not just resilience, but also sarcasm. That is how you keep moving forward when you know that the threat could come back tomorrow.
That same instinct has seeped into how Israelis view politics. For most of the country’s 78 years, governments have been unstable, and coalitions have almost always collapsed prematurely. Since 2019 alone, Israelis have gone through five elections – some just months apart – each one producing more gridlock than the one before. The result is a public that looks at political moves not with hope, but with suspicion.
Which brings us to this week’s announcement: the merger between former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid into a new party called Together (yes, that is the name).
The reaction was predictable.
Critics on the right rushed to declare that Bennett had finally revealed his “true colors” – that the man who once positioned himself as a representative of the ideological right had now crossed the line by joining forces with Lapid.
Others dismissed the move as political survival – a desperate attempt by Lapid to reverse declining poll numbers, or by Bennett to outmaneuver Gadi Eisenkot and cement his leadership of the anti-Netanyahu bloc.
Others framed it as transactional: Bennett wanted access to Yesh Atid’s funding, its infrastructure, and its field operations.
Maybe there is truth to some of those claims, and maybe there isn’t. None of us really knows. But focusing the conversation on all these theories misses the more important point. Because what this merger represents – regardless of the intent – is something Israeli politics has been missing for far too long – the possibility of unity.
Why Bennett, Lapid chose to run together despite differences
Bennett and Lapid come from different political traditions, speak to different constituencies, and hold different worldviews on key issues. And yet, they are choosing to sit together and compromise for the purpose of building something jointly. This unification is a message Israelis desperately need to hear – that politics do not have to be divisive and parties can come together despite differences.
After everything Israel has been through in recent years – the political paralysis, the social division, and the trauma of October 7 – that is a message that matters.
Nevertheless, it was almost immediately ignored by the media. Instead of asking Bennett and Lapid about their new party’s policies or vision for the country, analysts stuck to more familiar scripts: Who went up in the polls and who went down? Will the new party sit with the Arabs, or will Bennett maybe break away and sit with Netanyahu?
In other words, just number games about imaginary blocs, musical coalition chairs, and political scenarios.
These questions don’t really mean anything for Israelis. They lack substance. What Israelis should demand to hear is about the policies of this new party and what the members will do to make the country safer, to win in the ongoing war, and to continue growing the economy. We should be hearing detailed plans about the pressing domestic challenges, like the need to integrate the ultra-Orthodox into the IDF and the workforce.
These the questions that matter, and these are the questions that shape people’s lives. When we focus on the seats and hypothetical coalition scenarios, we are missing the real opportunity – to have a serious conversation about the policies that matter, and that will impact the future of this country and its people.
This is not just with regard to Bennett and Lapid. We should be pushing all of these parties to merge. The bigger the lists, the greater the chance they will be forced to unite with the other side. If we had, for example, two or three big parties instead of 10 small ones, they would be forced to compromise and sit together.
It would create stability and progress on the issues that truly matter. The failure to have these substantive conversations belongs to all of us – the public, the media, and the analysts. Because ultimately, the conversation follows the demand. If we demand substance, we will get more of it. If we settle for debates about musical chairs, then that is what we will continue to receive.
There is one final point worth noting about the merger, and that is Lapid’s decision to, once again, step aside.
Lapid is the only politician I can think of in Israel’s history who has done this three times: first with Benny Gantz in Blue and White, the second time in 2021 when he gave Bennett, whose party had just six seats, the premiership despite Yesh Atid holding 17, and now a third time.
You can question his motives and point to his steep decline in the polls. But doing the same thing three times suggests something more than a one-off political calculation. It suggests that, at the very least, he operates differently than what we have grown used to.
That doesn’t mean you have to support Lapid or agree with his goal of replacing Benjamin Netanyahu. But it also doesn’t mean you have to force yourself to ignore when a politician is willing to compromise on something significant for a greater objective.
Because the norm in Israeli politics – and not only in Israel – is the relentless pursuit of power and the refusal to step aside, no matter the cost.
When someone does something different, our immediate reaction is skepticism and cynicism. We assume there is some hidden agenda, and we look for it. Sometimes, that instinct is justified. But not always. And if we are not able to recognize even the possibility that it is real, then the cynicism that has come to define Israeli politics will only deepen.
We can look at politics differently, and that choice – whether to remain cynical or allow for something more – is ours.
The writer is a co-founder of the MEAD policy forum, a senior fellow at JPPI, and a former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post. His latest book is While Israel Slept.
Source:
www.jpost.com
