# Yair Lapid Centrist leader of **Yesh Atid** ("There Is a Future") and a central figure in the opposition to [[Benjamin Netanyahu]]'s right-religious coalition. A former television anchor and journalist who entered politics in 2012, Lapid built a secular, middle-class party that has repeatedly served as the main alternative to Likud. He was briefly **Prime Minister in 2022** as head of the diverse "change government" that interrupted Netanyahu's long tenure. ## The judicial-overhaul protests Lapid became a leading voice in the mass movement against the Netanyahu government's **2023 judicial overhaul** — a drive to curb the Supreme Court's powers that brought hundreds of thousands into the streets in what was, before October 7, 2023, the largest sustained pro-democracy mobilization in Israeli history. The protests framed the overhaul as an attempt to remove the last meaningful check on a governing coalition. ## Uniting a fragmented opposition Israel's anti-Netanyahu camp has long been split across personality and ideology, repeatedly allowing Likud to govern despite an unpopular record. In a bid to fix that, Lapid in **April 2026 merged Yesh Atid with Naftali Bennett's faction to form a unified "Together" (Beyachad) party** ahead of the election due by October 2026. Early polling suggested the merger underperformed the two parties' separate totals, and the broader opposition bloc still fell short of a majority — underscoring how durable Netanyahu's coalition math has been even amid war and corruption trials. ## Related - [[International Democratic Opposition Hub]] - [[Benjamin Netanyahu]]