Amit Segal, senior political analyst for Channel 12 News, explained on Wednesday why, in his view, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid are not rushing to accept the proposal of “Yashar!” party chairman Gadi Eisenkot to run together on a joint list in the next elections—although their supporters strongly support such a merger.

“For half a year, Bennett and Lapid have been courting Gadi Eisenkot—calling, meeting, sending messages, and saying, ‘Come run with us. Bennett knows that if Eisenkot is with him, he’ll rise and flourish—and if not, he’ll crash. Lapid knows exactly the same thing about himself,” Segal said.

“Eisenkot now tells them, ‘Thank you, but I’m proposing something else—let’s all three run together.’ The logic behind this is that it would create a huge party with 35 or maybe even 40 seats, running against Likud, with Avigdor Liberman to its right and Yair Golan to its left, and it might be able to win.”

“Bennett doesn’t really want this because he first wants to ensure he’s at the top, and Yair Lapid isn’t sure he wants it because he would be number three—but their camp very much wants a merger at any cost. Therefore, this move by Gadi Eisenkot is significant, with the potential to pull all of them into this new alignment,” Segal concluded.

It should be noted that in the latest poll by Shlomo Filber on Channel 14, Bennett’s party received 11 seats, Yashar received 6, and Yesh Atid received 5, totaling 22 seats—as compared to 35 seats received by Likud in the poll.

.(YWN Israel Desk—Jerusalem)