JNS.org..
25 February '19..
Political newcomer and former IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz announced the technical merger of his newly formed Israel Resilience party last week, together with the Yesh Atid Party founded in 2013 by then-political newcomer and television personality Yair Lapid. Scenario polls had indicated that combining the parties would give them a chance to garner more electoral votes than Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party.
The parties and most of the Israeli media have labeled the merger as a “centrist alliance” aimed at defeating the prime minister. The purpose of this label is to make Gantz and Lapid appear like the responsible middle of Israeli politics, distinct from the smaller and presently less relevant Labor and Meretz parties, and the ruling Likud, which has sat together in the past government with religious and pro-settlement parties to its right.
Yet despite the spin, the newly aligned parties do not form the center of the Israeli political spectrum. For the last 10 years, the center of Israeli politics has belonged to the ruling Likud Party and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the decade since Netanyahu has served as prime minister, he has formed governments together with every single party in the entire political spectrum (that survived more than one election cycle) with the exception of the far-left Meretz and Arab parties.
As such, Likud has ruled at the center of governments with nearly every party to both its left and right.
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