--- title: "Five Men Against Netanyahu: the Pact Signed in Lapid’s Tel Aviv Home" description: "Ten days before Israel votes, a general, two ex-premiers’ partners, a hawk and a leftist share a goal. They have no shared leader yet" author: "Jan Sokol" published: 2026-10-17T05:00:58Z modified: 2026-10-17T06:35:04Z url: https://rews.cc/a/five-men-against-netanyahu-the-pact-signed-in-lapid-s-tel-av-f4ea30 language: en tags: ["politics", "netanyahu", "elections", "gaza", "israel", "mideast"] publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)" --- # Five Men Against Netanyahu: the Pact Signed in Lapid’s Tel Aviv Home *Ten days before Israel votes, a general, two ex-premiers’ partners, a hawk and a leftist share a goal. They have no shared leader yet* By Jan Sokol · October 17, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/five-men-against-netanyahu-the-pact-signed-in-lapid-s-tel-av-f4ea30 ## In brief - Five Israeli opposition leaders signed a non-aggression pact on September 26 to unseat Netanyahu in the October 27 election - The bloc declined to name Eisenkot, whose Yashar party leads the polls, as its prime ministerial candidate - Liberman rejects any government with the ultra-Orthodox, relying on Arab parties, or a minority government - Of the five, only Golan’s Democrats see a Palestinian state even as a distant goal; none calls the Gaza war genocide - Netanyahu says the bloc would form a left-wing government with Arab parties, which most of its leaders have ruled out On September 26, five men gathered in a private house in Tel Aviv. The house belonged to Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition. The others were Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister who now leads Lapid’s joint list; Gadi Eisenkot, a former military chief of staff who founded a new party called Yashar; Yair Golan of the Democrats; and Avigdor Liberman of Yisrael Beiteinu. They signed a non-aggression pact. Its purpose fits in one line: remove Benjamin Netanyahu at the election of October 27. The paper they signed was modest. According to [the Times of Israel](https://www.timesofisrael.com/at-meeting-opposition-chiefs-pledge-not-to-attack-each-other-set-up-working-groups/), the central promise read: “From this day until the establishment of the government, none of us, or those acting on our behalf, will attack other parties in the bloc or its leader.” There would be working groups to draft a programme: shared military service obligations, a state commission of inquiry into October 7, term limits for prime ministers, a constitution, a plan for the first hundred days. Their joint statement called for “a Zionist, statesmanlike government dedicated to repair and reconstruction.” Then they went home. It was not long before they were attacking one another. ## The general Eisenkot is 66. He commanded the army from 2015 to 2019. He is credited with the Dahiyeh Doctrine of 2008, the doctrine of “disproportionate force”. After October 7 he sat in the war cabinet. In December 2023 his son Gal and two of his nephews were killed in Gaza. In June 2024 he left the war cabinet, saying Netanyahu had no strategy, and a year later he founded Yashar, which promises professional government, military service for everyone including the ultra-Orthodox, and a state inquiry into October 7. ![A hanging jacket combines an olive military coat with a black mourning ribbon and a dark business suit, divided by a torn edge against teal.](https://rews.cc/img/9d4bd5c51f44a82a664e0562363b6a573220bb79.webp) His quarrel with the government is mostly about method. He has criticised Israel’s reliance on Washington without questioning the aims of the wars. He has described the US-Iran negotiations as “a deal taking shape far from here and far from Israeli interests,” and objected to American limits on Israel’s freedom to act in Lebanon. He has ruled out the Arab party Ra’am, saying no Arab party would accept his conditions, among them recognising Israel as a Jewish state. [A Times of Israel analysis](https://www.timesofisrael.com/by-refusing-to-name-a-leader-the-anti-netanyahu-change-bloc-is-making-a-fatal-mistake/amp/) reports that Yashar leads every poll. Yet in Tel Aviv the bloc chose not to name him as its candidate for prime minister. The paper called that a mistake that could prove fatal. ## The partners Bennett, 54, and Lapid, 62, have shared power before, for 18 months in 2021 and 2022. In April this year they formed a joint list, Bennett first and Lapid second. Eisenkot said he had expected the three of them to form a centrist “super-party”. He was told of the alliance by phone “minutes before it was publicly announced.” Bennett has long backed West Bank settlements. Lapid calls him “a right-wing politician, but an honest one.” Neither supports a Palestinian state. Bennett fully backs the war on Iran, and he praised the September 2025 strike on Hamas leaders in Doha, which killed a Qatari security officer and was widely condemned. When Lapid criticises the Gaza war, he criticises how the world sees it, not why it is being fought. Both now rule out depending on Arab parties. Bennett has admitted that bringing Ra’am into his 2021 coalition broke a campaign promise. ![An antique wooden bench with worn green leather upholstery and a cream cloth draped across its seat stands against a blue background with an orange circle.](https://rews.cc/img/5936cc6e7eb2e4b09238de5abb6914437f153d39.webp) ## The hawk Liberman, 68, founded his party in 1999 for Russian-speaking immigrants, and he is the hardest-line man in the group. He will not serve under Netanyahu, or with the ultra-Orthodox, or in a coalition that relies on Arab parties, or in a minority government. That last refusal reportedly makes him one of the main obstacles to Eisenkot leading the bloc. In 2023 he repeated his claim that there were “no innocents in Gaza”. He has accused the government of funding Hamas by letting minimal aid in, and he called a limited operation in Lebanon “complete madness”. Since the pact he has accused Eisenkot of acting out of “personal ambition”. “Lieberman does not belong in this bloc,” said the analyst Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, although he noted that Liberman keeps a loyal base. Observers say Liberman could go back to Netanyahu’s camp. ## The leftist Golan, 64, is a retired major-general who leads the Democrats, the party formed when Labor and Meretz merged in 2024. He was praised for driving south on October 7 to help fight off the attack. He is the only man on the left in the group, and the only one open to working with Palestinian parties. Even so, he supported disqualifying Sami Abu Shehadeh, the leader of Balad, and the Joint List criticised him for it. In May 2025 he said that a “sane country does not kill babies as a hobby”. Then he walked it back. He praised the 12-day war with Iran but called the assassination of Khamenei a “mistake”. Roi Zur of the University of Essex said there is “no winning coalition without” Golan and Liberman. Both are secular, both oppose Netanyahu and both reject draft exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox. Since the signing, [the two have clashed repeatedly](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-16-2026/). ![Two weathered, interlocking gears, one red and one dark blue, rest on a yellow background crossed by a dark blue stripe.](https://rews.cc/img/0b11f456b42e00a02df8cacfae1e2c181c644001.webp) ## What none of them will say The disagreements are real, but they are narrow. As [Simon Speakman Cordall writes for Al Jazeera](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/17/the-israeli-politicians-seeking-to-replace-netanyahu), Golan is the only one of the five who does not take a right-wing approach. None is committed to a Palestinian state; only the Democrats treat one as a distant and vague goal. None accepts that the Gaza war, which has killed more than 74,000 people, is genocide or involves war crimes. None has questioned the strikes on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Qatar or Iran, except over how they look abroad. Ahron Bregman of King’s College London said the five “are not willing to touch the real, fundamental issue” of Palestinian independence. He described them as Netanyahu without the corruption allegations and without Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. “Israel as a whole is a right-wing nation,” he said. That much of the argument was settled long before anyone sat down in Tel Aviv, and rews has [traced it before](https://rews.cc/a/four-israeli-parties-agree-netanyahu-must-go-and-on-little-e-44f76e). Netanyahu’s answer to the pact was a single sentence of warning: “Eisenkot will form a left-wing government with Liberman, Yair Golan, Bennett and the Arab parties. Only a large Likud will stop them.” Every man he named has ruled out depending on Ra’am, and most of them have ruled out much more. In politics, though, a label can matter more than the facts. He has [run on security](https://rews.cc/a/netanyahu-runs-on-security-as-gaza-war-pulls-israel-s-electi-c45a44) in a country where his rivals compete to sound just as hard as he does. Ten days are left. The five who promised not to attack each other have still not agreed who would lead them if they win.