At New Party's Rally, Bennett Pledges Unity, Constitution

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett vowed Tuesday night to enact a constitution and overhaul Israel’s divided school systems if elected, speaking at the first major rally of his new Together alliance with Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.

Addressing thousands of supporters at Expo Tel Aviv, Bennett said his goal was to “unite the nation,” presenting the alliance as an alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government ahead of elections expected no later than October.

“One nation, one constitution. One nation, one education. One nation, one state,” Bennett said. He said the constitution he would advance would be in the spirit of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which defines the country as both Jewish and democratic.

Israel has never adopted a formal constitution, despite a pledge in the Declaration of Independence to do so. Instead, the country operates under a series of Basic Laws that serve as a partial constitutional framework.

Bennett also promised to merge Israel’s separate school systems, including secular, National Religious, Haredi and Arab frameworks, into one national education system. He said all students would study a shared core curriculum including Hebrew, English, mathematics, civics, Bible, Jewish heritage and Zionism.

“We’ll stop funding schools that teach their kids, ‘We’ll die and won’t draft,’” Bennett said, referring to Haredi opposition to mandatory military service. He called the education plan “the greatest social revolution since the state was founded.”

The issue of Haredi military exemptions has become one of the central pressures on Netanyahu’s coalition. On Tuesday, Haredi lawmakers warned they could vote to dissolve the Knesset because the government has not passed a law preserving broad exemptions for yeshiva students.

Lapid told the rally that Yesh Atid would submit a motion next week to dissolve the Knesset, drawing strong applause from the crowd.

Bennett said the coalition was collapsing because it was built on harming IDF soldiers. He also repeated his promise that the first act of a government he leads would be to establish a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the October 7 massacre.

Bennett appealed directly to disenchanted Likud voters, saying the party of Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir and Ze’ev Jabotinsky had become an “empty shell” under Netanyahu. He said its founders would be “rolling in their graves” at the influence of Kahanists, draft-dodgers and political hacks.

Lapid said the merger with Bennett was meant to restore hope after years of division. He acknowledged that the two do not agree on everything, calling Bennett a right-winger and himself a centrist, but said they share a commitment to Zionism, democracy, and public service.