Naftali Bennett is back: Former Israeli prime minister will make another run at Netanyahu
Four years ago, Naftali Bennett was the first person in more than a decade to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaks at a news conference at the Knesset in Jerusalem, April 21, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
(JTA) — Four years ago, Naftali Bennett was the first person in more than a decade to unseat Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Now, he looks like he’ll try to do it again.
Bennett, who served as prime minister for about a year from mid-2021 to mid-2022, ended his three-year hiatus from public office by registering a new political party on Tuesday. It doesn’t have members or even a name (for now, it’s “Bennett 2026”), but Bennett’s return to politics has been buzzed about for months, and he’s expected to pose a serious challenge to the unpopular yet formidable prime minister.
Bennett, a former tech entrepreneur born of American immigrants to Israel, has been one of the driving forces of this era of Israeli politics — and one of the most controversial. A religious Zionist who wears a small knit kippa, he entered politics on the hardline, pro-settler right, serving for years as a senior partner in successive Netanyahu governments in a variety of cabinet roles. He has been a longtime vocal opponent of Palestinian statehood.
But he and Netanyahu had a reportedly acrimonious relationship for years — Bennett was once his aide — and in 2021 he rebelled. That June, he joined an unlikely coalition with a group of centrist and left-wing parties, plus an Arab-Israeli faction, to cobble together a bare majority in Knesset, ousting Netanyahu’s Likud Party from power for the first time since 2009. Although Bennett’s party was not the largest, his defection from the right earned him the role of prime minister.
That maneuver earned him overwhelming and lasting ire on the right, and his government fell apart. By the end of 2022, Netanyahu was back in power. Bennett, who made millions in tech before running for office, said he was taking a break from politics.
Since then, and especially since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, Bennett has depicted himself as more of a centrist compromiser who has the good of Israel’s diverse electorate in mind. He hopes to appeal to people on the center and left — as well as disaffected right-wingers. And he’s long positioned himself, religiously and culturally, as a bridge-builder, a modern Orthodox man who married a secular wife and whose life spans much of Israel’s Jewish spectrum.
Bennett has not publicly commented on his return but it is hardly a surprise. For months, polls have been including a theoretical Bennett party in election surveys — and they’ve shown him performing well, even though its unclear what exactly the party would stand for or who his deputies might be.
Centrist Yair Lapid, who partnered with him in 2021 and now serves as leader of the parliamentary opposition, praised his return. So did centrist Benny Gantz. Netanyahu’s allies mocked him.
But one thing is clear: The race is on.
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