Lapid to host all five change bloc leaders for coordination meeting ahead of elections

Opposition leader Yair Lapid will host the leaders of the "change bloc," former prime minister Naftali Bennett, Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman, and Democrats party chairman Yair Golan, at his Tel Aviv home on Saturday night for talks on coordinating their moves ahead of the elections.

All five party leaders are expected to attend.

The meeting comes as the bloc's leaders seek to tighten coordination while grappling with disagreements over election strategy, the identity of the candidate who will lead the camp and possible paths toward forming a government after the elections. Some of those disagreements have already spilled into the public arena in recent weeks.

Ahead of the joint meeting, Eisenkot and Liberman met at Yashar's offices on Wednesday. It was their second meeting in about two weeks, following recent changes in party lists, polling and the overall balance between the political blocs. According to reports, the two were expected to discuss election strategy and ways to strengthen the bloc.

Following the meeting, Yashar and Yisrael Beytenu issued a joint statement: "Yisrael Beytenu chairman MK Avigdor Liberman and Yashar! chairman Gadi Eisenkot met today and discussed coordinating a bloc-wide strategy. The two agreed to continue cooperating and carrying out the necessary measures, also in coordination with the other parties in the bloc, to achieve victory in the election campaign, out of a supreme commitment to replacing the government of the October 7 massacre."

The joint statement from Eisenkot and Liberman appears to signal agreement on something Liberman and others have been demanding for some time: a shift toward a bloc-wide strategy. In other words, the parties would stop trying to strengthen themselves at the expense of their partners, including through Yashar's "largest party" campaign and its demand that the other parties commit in advance to recommending its leader, and instead work to maximize the strength of the bloc as a whole.

Statements are one thing, but the real test will come on the ground. If messages urging voters to support the largest party disappear, that could indicate that the change has taken effect rather than remaining only on paper.

There is also the issue of timing. As long as Eisenkot was climbing in the polls, it was harder for him to stop and consider the bloc as a whole. Over the past two weeks, the upward trend has stalled and the numbers have stabilized, potentially making such an approach more natural.

Eisenkot addressed coordination within the camp on Wednesday morning, telling 103FM, "There are weekly meetings to coordinate between the parties, and there are also substantive disagreements. We have a common goal, and I am certain it will be expressed by the elections and will lead to us defeating this failed government."

Bloc leaders split over forming government with non-Zionist parties

One of the issues exposing divisions among the bloc's leaders concerns the possibility of forming a government if the Zionist parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do not secure 61 Knesset seats on their own.

Eisenkot has recently set a condition under which any party seeking to join a government formed by his party would be required to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization that must be dismantled.

"I added another principle: recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organization that must be dismantled. I don't see any Arab party accepting that. Anyone who does not accept that will not sit with me," he said on Wednesday.

Referring to MK Ahmad Tibi, Eisenkot added, "Ahmad Tibi is the person most courted by the coalition; he helped them bring down the government. I'm not getting into that at all."

At the same time, Eisenkot and Liberman disagree over whether it would be possible to form a government without the support of a 61-MK majority from Zionist factions. Eisenkot has previously made clear that he does not intend to leave the incumbent government in power solely because the opposition lacks such a majority, while Liberman has drawn a red line against a minority government dependent on outside support from Arab factions.

The meeting at Lapid's home is set to take place against the backdrop of efforts to coordinate among parties that differ in their positions and voter bases. Alongside their shared objective of replacing the Netanyahu government, the camp's leaders have yet to reach full agreement on who should be their candidate for prime minister or on some of the coalition issues that would arise after the elections.

Yisrael Beytenu MK claims Eisenkot empowering Netanyahu's campaign

Relations among the key players have also been tense. Over the past week, Eisenkot and figures in Yisrael Beytenu have exchanged remarks after Liberman's party criticized the strategy led by the Yashar chairman.

MK Oded Forer, one of Yisrael Beytenu's senior figures, said last week that Eisenkot was "fueling Bibi's campaign" and that winning would require drawing votes from other political camps as well.

These disagreements make Saturday night's gathering more than a technical coordination meeting. The party leaders will have to discuss how to manage their joint campaign alongside their separate campaigns and how to address disagreements over the makeup of a future government and the path by which it could be formed.

The previous attempt by some of these political figures to serve together in government came with the Bennett-Lapid government, formed in 2021 on the basis of a broad coalition of parties from different political camps.

Ahead of the current elections, the leaders of the "change bloc" are once again seeking to create a framework that will allow them to coordinate. This time, however, questions of leadership, the composition of a future coalition and each party's red lines are already publicly on the table.