He was in turn advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu and then his rival, while remaining an essential partner: the millionaire Naftali Bennett, leader of the radical right, could succeed his mentor and become prime minister of Israel. This is the consequence of an agreement with the leader of the Israeli opposition, Yair Lapid, announced on the evening of Wednesday, June 2. The text provides that Naftali Bennett will become prime minister initially, before giving way to Yaïr Lapid.
The negotiations leading to the agreement lasted several days, and the news did not fall until 11:25 p.m. on Wednesday local time (10:25 p.m. in Paris), shortly before the deadline: Yaïr Lapid informed the president he had “Succeeded in forming a government”. He claims to have gathered a majority of 61 deputies, out of the 120 in the Knesset, the unicameral Parliament of the State of Israel, and to have reached an agreement on a government of “Change” – an alliance that goes from the left to the right-wing party of Mr. Bennett through the support of Arab deputies.
Parliament’s meeting for the confidence vote could be held next week, on a date still unknown. Until then, Benjamin Netanyahu and his party, the Likud, will try to prevent the approval of the agreement by the Knesset. If Mr. Lapid gets the green light from parliament, he could end more than two years of political crisis in Israel, with four elections so far failed to result in a stable government.
Bennett left the doubt
Bald head, discreet kippah and speaking the English of Americans, Naftali Bennett heads the Yamina formation, which advocates both economic ultraliberalism, a hard line against Iran or the annexation of nearly two-thirds of the West Bank , Palestinian territory occupied by the Israeli army since 1967. For a long time, Mr. Bennett had played on two sides and left the doubt on his intention to deliver, or not, the final blow to Benyamin Netanyahu, in power for fifteen years.
The 49-year-old businessman, who made his fortune in tech, entered politics late. But, since 2013, this figure of the current “Religious nationalist” and close to the settlers, held five ministerial portfolios. The last, that of defense in 2020, led him, at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in Israel, to organize a spectacular mobilization of the army to manage the crisis. “A tailor-made image for an audience desperately looking for a legitimate replacement for Netanyahu”, notes Evan Gottesman of the Israel Policy Forum.
If the coalition deal were approved by the Knesset, Naftali Bennett would be the first religious leader in Jewish state history to wear a kippah or strictly observe Shabbat.
The one who was killed politically two years ago, and who scored poorly in the last legislative elections in March, has been able to maneuver in recent weeks to impose himself as “Kingsmaker” in the complex negotiations carried out with the aim of forming a government coalition.
A hard straight line
“The left makes compromises far from easy, when it grants me (…) the role of prime minister ”, declared at the start of the negotiations Mr. Bennett, who has built his entire political career on a hard right line and partisan of “greater Israel”.
Son of American immigrants born March 25, 1972 in Haifa (north of the country), Naftali Bennett, who served in the prestigious elite unit of special forces Sayeret Matkal, like Benjamin Netanyahu, won at the turn of the 2000s as one of the tenors of the “start-up nation” with his cybersecurity company Cyotta, sold for 145 million dollars in 2005. The following year, he made the leap into the world of politics for the Likud, where he becomes the right arm of Benyamin Netanyahu.
Two years later, Naftali Bennett left Likud to head for a time the Council of Yesha, the main organization representing Israeli settlers in the West Bank, which would become his political business, even though he had never lived in one of them. these controversial settlements.
In 2012, he took the reins of the right-wing Foyer Juif, which then joined other microparties to form the Yamina party (“to the right”). The latter, known for his muse, Ayelet Shaked, is now headed by Naftali Bennett. And the latter succeeded in seducing some of the settlers with strong nationalist remarks.
Example? The conflict with the Palestinians cannot be settled but it must be endured as a “Shrapnel in the buttocks”. Or again: there is no Israeli occupation in the West Bank because “There has never been a Palestinian state”. See: the “Terrorists must be killed, not released”, terms launched with regard to Palestinian prisoners. He had, for example, promised Iran a “Vietnam” if the Islamic Republic continued, according to him, to establish itself militarily in neighboring Syria.
But Naftali Bennett, father of four children and living in the wealthy city of Raanana (center of the country), also stands out within his religious right-wing milieu: questions about the place of religion in the State are not in his mind. priorities and it embodies a certain liberalism of values, notably, for example, on LGBT + issues.
