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Leaders of the new Blue and White party, Benny Gantz and Yair Lapid, held their first press conference yesterday after announcing an agreement to merge their parties for the 9 April election. The new party includes former Chiefs of Staff Moshe Yaalon and Gabi Ashkenazi.

Gantz said: “Today we are changing the face of Israel. In the past decade something has gone wrong. Israel has lost its way. The government has incited division [in Israeli society], it’s a government that divides and rules. We’re here to say, ‘enough.’ Instead of division, we want unity. Instead of extremism, we want dignity. Instead of fraction, we propose national reconciliation.”

Gantz also called on the ultra-Orthodox community to work with the new centrist party “on the basis of mutual respect”. Gaining the support from ultra-Orthodox parties will be crucial if Gantz and Lapid want to create a governing coalition of 61 seats or more after the elections.

Lapid, who heads Yesh Atid, said: “The Israeli public will go to the polls on the 9 April to choose what kind of country they want, what sort of country their children will live in: a country of investigations, corruption and incitement or a country of hope, resilience and a promise for the future. Netanyahu chose [racist rabbi Meir] Kahane’s people as his partners. We choose each other, and more than that, we choose the citizens of Israel.”

Yesh Atid candidates fill 13 of the first 30 slots on the joint list, Israel Resilience have 12, and Ya’alon’s party received four slots. Gabi Ashkenazi is in the fourth spot on the list. If the joint party wins enough seats to lead a new coalition Government, for the first two and a half years Lapid will serve as Foreign Minister, Ya’alon will head the Defence Ministry while Gantz will be Prime Minister — for the remaining term Lapid would then take over as Prime Minister from Gantz, who in turn would become Defence Minister.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Gantz and Lapid of “relying on Arab parties who not only don’t recognise the State of Israel,” but want to destroy it. He said Israel has already seen such a scenario of “leftist generals,” giving former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the “Oslo disaster” as an example.

Four separate polls predicted that the new party would win 35-36 seats and Likud would win 30 seats. But the polls also suggest Netanyahu has the best chance of forming a coalition.