Naftali Bennett did not appear in Israeli politics as an emergency face on the right, nor as a politician who left his ideological camp for the center, but rather as one of the sons of the national-religious right who re-adapted their discourse to a crisis-ridden Israeli moment.
The man who returns today through his alliance with Yair Lapid does not carry a different project for the Palestinians, as much as he carries a different offer for the Israelis: a right wing without Netanyahu, security packages without coalition chaos, and a strong state without dependence on the Haredim, Ben Gvir, and Smotrich.
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Bennett was born in Haifa in 1972 to an American Jewish family that immigrated from San Francisco after the 1967 war. He served in special combat units, then moved to the world of technology before entering the public sphere through the gates of the West Bank Settlements Council, where he served as General Director of the Yesha Council, a position that placed him early on at the heart of the settlement project and not on its margins.
His official biography in the Knesset states that he later held several ministerial positions, including economy, education, and defense, before becoming prime minister.
Bennett did not come only from the traditional Likud right, but also from the settler religious right, which sees the West Bank as part of the “Land of Israel” and rejects a Palestinian state.
This background is necessary to understand Bennett, as he did not come from the traditional Likud right only, but also from the settler religious right, which sees the West Bank as part of the “Land of Israel” and rejects the Palestinian state as a security and ideological threat. Therefore, his current return to the language of “unity” and “rescue” appears to be a shift in tools, not in essence.
Right-wing parties
Bennett has led the Jewish Home party since 2012, transforming a limited national religious party into a more visible political force within Netanyahu’s governments.
He then broke away with Ayelet Shaked in 2019 to found the New Right, in an attempt to attract a secular right-wing constituency alongside the nationalist religious base.
The party failed to enter the Knesset in the 2019 elections, but it later returned within the “Yamina” coalition, from which Bennett reached the presidency of the government in 2021 after forming the “Government of Change” with Lapid and parties from the center and left and with the support of the United Arab List.
This path reveals Bennett’s political pragmatism, as he did not hesitate to leave the Jewish Home when it became difficult for him, nor to ally with Yair Lapid (head of the Yesh Atid party) when the battle to overthrow Netanyahu required it, nor to rely on Mansour Abbas in 2021 despite his previous speech rejecting that. But at every stop, he continued to present himself as a right-winger more competent than Netanyahu, not a politician who had abandoned the right.
Short government
Bennett led an exceptional government after repeated elections that paralyzed Israel politically. His government was a broad coalition that brought together the right, the center, the left, and an Arab party. It ended after only about a year, but it achieved one goal that he continues to brag about to this day: removing Netanyahu from the prime minister’s office.
In return, Bennett paid a heavy price within his camp; He was portrayed on the right as someone who “betrayed” his audience, sat with his opponents, and granted legitimacy to an Arab partnership in governance.
After the fall of the change government, he withdrew from political life, but returned with the decline of Netanyahu’s image after October 7, 2023, and the expansion of the search within Israel for a right-wing alternative capable of addressing an audience “without Netanyahu” without breaking the security consensus.
In his recent statements, Bennett did not leave much room for ambiguity. In an interview with Channel 12 after his union with Lapid, he said that whoever wants victory “must unite behind me,” stressing that he “did not hand over a single centimeter of land,” and that Netanyahu was the one who handed over parts of the West Bank, released Yahya Sinwar, and transferred the money to Hamas.
In the same interview, Bennett rejected political dependence on Arab parties, saying that he would care about the Arab citizens of Israel, but would not “lean” on them.
After announcing the union with Yair Lapid, Naftali Bennett said that a Palestinian state is not on the table at the current stage, and that he does not believe it will be established, confirming that his rapprochement with the center does not mean a change in his position on the Palestinian issue. Here the difference between the old Bennett and the new one appears: the old one announced its rejection from the right-wing settlement site, and the new one announced it from the site of “security rationality” after October 7.
Netanyahu’s alternative
Bennett’s current strength does not come from his shift to the center, but rather from a vacuum within the right. Netanyahu is still a strong electoral leader, and opinion polls give him a great advantage over all his competitors, but he is burdened by the October 7 failure, and by a coalition that includes Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and the Haredim.
Therefore, Bennett is trying to present himself as an administrative right: no Palestinian state, no dependence on the Arabs, no concession of land, but also no chaos, no evasion of the draft, and no complete submission to Netanyahu’s allies.
From here it is possible to read his union with Lapid, which gives him centrist legitimacy and a bridge to an audience hostile to Netanyahu, while Bennett gives Lapid a right-wing front that is difficult for Likud to accuse of being leftist. However, the polls that followed the union showed that combining the two forces alone is not enough to resolve the battle, and that the entry of Gadi Eisenkot, head of the Yashar Party, may be the decisive factor in expanding the bloc opposed to Netanyahu.
The bottom line is that Bennett did not change his political skin, but rather he changed the language of his presentation. Its history is the history of a settler right that knows how to change alliances, how to move from one party to another, and how to address the center when it needs it.
As for the Palestinian issue, its essence remained constant: rejection of the state, rejection of decisive Arab partnership, and adherence to the land, while trying to convince the Israelis that he is able to save the right from Netanyahu, not save the Palestinians from the right.
