---
title: "Four Israeli Parties Agree Netanyahu Must Go, and on Little Else About Palestinians"
description: "The opposition pact before the October 27 vote is a plan to beat Netanyahu. On Gaza and the West Bank, analysts expect only marginal change"
author: "Nate Ledger"
published: 2026-10-12T07:27:14Z
modified: 2026-10-12T15:58:45Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/four-israeli-parties-agree-netanyahu-must-go-and-on-little-e-44f76e
language: en
tags: ["netanyahu", "elections", "gaza", "palestine", "israel", "mideast"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Four Israeli Parties Agree Netanyahu Must Go, and on Little Else About Palestinians

*The opposition pact before the October 27 vote is a plan to beat Netanyahu. On Gaza and the West Bank, analysts expect only marginal change*

By Nate Ledger · October 12, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/four-israeli-parties-agree-netanyahu-must-go-and-on-little-e-44f76e

## In brief

- Yashar, the Democrats, Yisrael Beytenu and Together have agreed to cooperate to unseat Netanyahu before the October 27 election
- A Channel 12 poll gives the four parties 54 of 120 seats, seven short of a majority, and Netanyahu’s bloc 49
- Most opposition leaders rule out partnering with Arab-led parties, which are projected to win 13 seats
- Only Democrats leader Yair Golan backs a form of two states; Eisenkot, Bennett and Lieberman oppose a Palestinian state
- Analysts expect marginal change, such as curbs on settler violence and steadier Gaza aid, under a thin, divided coalition

Most coalition agreements are about what the parties want to do. This one is mostly about who they want gone. Four rival Israeli opposition movements (the Yashar party, the Democrats, Yisrael Beytenu and the Together alliance) have agreed to work together to unseat Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, before the October 27 election, [as Stephen Quillen reports for Al Jazeera](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/10/12/if-netanyahu-goes-does-anything-really-change-for-palestinians). They come from different parts of the political spectrum, and the purpose they say unites them is to “preserve and strengthen Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” On September 26 their leaders signed a declaration promising not to attack one another and to cooperate on forming a government afterwards. Beating the current government, they wrote, is their “shared highest objective.”

The signatories were Yair Lapid, who leads the official opposition; Gadi Eisenkot of Yashar; Naftali Bennett of Together; Avigdor Lieberman of Yisrael Beytenu; and Yair Golan of the Democrats. Together is itself a merger: in April, Lapid’s Yesh Atid and Bennett’s party [agreed to run as a single list](https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-894194) led by Bennett. Nobody was named leader of the four-way arrangement, though Eisenkot is seen as the most likely candidate for prime minister. They are still running as separate lists. The closest thing to a financial merger is a pair of surplus-vote agreements, [Yashar with the Democrats and Yisrael Beytenu with Together](https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/yashar-and-democrats-sign-surplus-vote-agreement-as-do-yisrael-beytenu-and-byachad/), which pool the leftover votes each pair has after its full seats are counted. Think of it as two companies agreeing to share the spare change in their tills while keeping separate books.

![Four hands extending from torn suit sleeves grasp an antique wooden armchair suspended against a textured blue background.](https://rews.cc/img/037cf1f7812784c75063788dcd0c93cff4efc3d4.webp)

## The arithmetic

A Channel 12 poll puts Yashar at 23 seats, ahead of Netanyahu’s Likud on 21, with Together at 13 and Yisrael Beytenu and the Democrats at 9 each. That’s 23 + 13 + 9 + 9 = 54 seats in a 120-seat Knesset, where a majority is 61, so seven short. Netanyahu’s bloc is projected at 49. Other polling is tighter: a Kan survey had the two blocs [tied at 52 seats each](https://www.jpost.com/israel-election-2026/article-909918), with 39% of voters preferring Netanyahu as prime minister and 38% preferring Eisenkot.

Here is the awkward part. Arab-led parties are projected to win 13 seats, and 54 + 13 = 67, which is a comfortable majority. But Palestinian citizens, roughly 20% of Israel’s population, are represented by parties most opposition leaders have ruled out as partners. Bennett and Lapid said when they merged that they would form a government only with the Zionist opposition parties. So the opposition’s path to 61 runs around 13 seats it has already won on paper. Roi Zur of the University of Essex says turnout matters, and that right-leaning parties falling below the 3.25% electoral threshold could help the opposition. “But this might not be enough.”

## What they actually think

If you are a Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank, the question is whether swapping out the government changes anything. The leaders’ own positions suggest not much. Eisenkot calls a Palestinian state “delusional” and supports “strengthening” settlements, but he opposes full annexation and the E1 settlement plan and would take down unauthorised outposts. He backs a US-supported Gaza plan, provided Israel acts from “strength” and only after “Hamas’s total disarmament.” Bennett describes himself as “more right-wing” than Netanyahu, once called for a “shoot-to-kill” policy, opposes a Palestinian state and supports settlement growth, though he has criticised settler pogroms. He wants Israeli troops to stay in Gaza until Hamas disarms, and prefers Egypt to Turkiye or Qatar in any security role.

![A weathered hiking boot forms a rocky hillside dotted with stone houses and cypress trees, against a mustard yellow background and large red sun.](https://rews.cc/img/649ec6a669f24da39e99b8bcd82109b2ae81db7a.webp)

Lieberman supports settlement expansion, E1 included, and wants to annex Area C, which is 60% of the West Bank, and hand other parts to Jordan. On Gaza he wants Israeli “freedom of action,” water and electricity cut off, and eventually a handover to an international body. Golan is the only one of the four who supports any version of two states, which he calls “responsible separation”: full demilitarisation and Israeli security control of the Jordan Valley. He also backs demilitarising Gaza and rebuilding it with regional help.

So one of four leaders supports a Palestinian state, with heavy conditions, and the other three oppose one with varying enthusiasm. Samer Jaber of Royal Holloway puts it bluntly: “Palestinians should not expect a fundamental change in Israeli policy if the Netanyahu bloc loses power.” The main blocs, he argues, share core positions, including support for settlements. The Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu says each opposition leader “has supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”

The politicians are not out of step with their voters. In a Pew poll in September, just 17% of Israelis thought peaceful coexistence with a Palestinian state was possible. An August survey by the Jewish People Policy Institute found 38% of Jewish Israelis supported annexing the entire West Bank, and more than half wanted to keep settlements in any deal. If you are trying to assemble 61 seats, you don’t pitch a platform 83% of the electorate thinks is fantasy.

![Four antique keys lie beside a large weathered stone padlock with an olive tree inside its arch, against a textured green background with torn orange paper.](https://rews.cc/img/744270908f21fcf6ac3e1685c90dd84a94eb50dc.webp)

The cost of the status quo is measured in lives. Since the October 2025 ceasefire, nearly 1,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and health officials put the total death toll since October 2023 above 74,000. The truce has [left Israel holding about 60% of the Strip](https://rews.cc/a/a-ceasefire-says-gaza-that-exists-only-where-it-was-signed-1aa7c9).

## The margins

Analysts do see some differences. Dov Waxman of UCLA says a new government might suspend E1, rein in settler violence and allow steadier aid and reconstruction in Gaza. It would also drop Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich from the cabinet; Smotrich recently called for going “to war” [in the West Bank](https://rews.cc/a/do-in-the-west-bank-what-we-did-in-gaza-smotrich-calls-for-w-94451f). Ehab Jabareen expects an opposition government to be “more receptive to US and international pressure,” though he says the change would mostly concern how control “is exercised, legitimised and managed.”

Even those margins depend on the coalition holding together. Anders Persson expects “a very disparate coalition with a very thin majority, if any,” which would make a concession like a full withdrawal from Gaza hard to pass and would blunt international pressure. Picture a government in which Golan wants responsible separation and Lieberman wants the water turned off, held together by a seven-seat shortfall and a shared dislike of the man they are replacing. That government will not do much fast.

Amjad Iraqi of the International Crisis Group frames the choice as one of degree: “We’re at a point of mitigation.” He also says “every life saved, every piece of land saved matters a lot.” Nobody on the opposition side is campaigning on mitigation. For Palestinians it may be the most accurate description of what is on the ballot.