Naftali Bennet

Naftali Bennett (, ; born 25 March 1972) is an Israeli politician and businessman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 13 June 2021 to 30 June 2022, and as the alternate prime minister from 1 July to 8 November 2022. Bennett was the leader of the New Right party from 2018 to 2022, having previously led The Jewish Home party between 2012 and 2018.

The son of immigrants from the United States, Bennett was born and raised in Haifa. Bennett served in the Sayeret Matkal and Maglan special forces units of the Israel Defense Forces, commanding many combat operations, and subsequently became a software entrepreneur. In 1999, he co-founded and co-owned the US company Cyota. The company was sold in 2005 for $145 million. He also was CEO of Soluto, an Israeli cloud computing service, that sold in 2013 for a reported $100–130 million.

Bennett entered politics in 2006, as Chief of Staff for Benjamin Netanyahu until 2008. From 2010 to 2012, he was the director of the Yesha Council. In 2011, together with Ayelet Shaked, he co-founded the My Israel extra-parliamentary movement. In 2012, Bennett was elected as the party leader of The Jewish Home. In the 2013 Knesset election, the first contested by The Jewish Home under Bennett's leadership, the party won 12 seats in the Knesset. He served under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Minister of Economy and Religious Services from 2013 to 2015, before being appointed Minister of Education in 2015. In December 2018, Bennett left The Jewish Home to form the New Right party. After he lost his Knesset seat in the April 2019 Knesset election, he was dismissed by Netanyahu as Education Minister in June 2019. He regained his seat in the September 2019 Knesset election, representing the New Right (now a member of the Yamina alliance), and was appointed Minister of Defense, before leaving the position the following year.

In the 2021 Knesset election, Yamina under Bennett's leadership won 7 seats. On 2 June 2021, Bennett agreed to a rotation government with Yair Lapid, whereby Bennett would serve as Israel's prime minister until 2023, after which Lapid would assume the role until 2025. Bennett was sworn in on 13 June 2021. On 20 June 2022, following failures of the coalition to pass bills in the Knesset, Bennett announced he would call for a vote to dissolve the Knesset and step down as prime minister after the dissolution, to be succeeded by Lapid. On 29 June, he announced that he would not seek re-election to the chamber in the next election that have been scheduled for later in the year. Lapid succeeded him as prime minister on 1 July 2022, while Bennett succeeded Lapid as the Alternate Prime Minister. He announced his resignation as alternative prime minister on 6 November, which became effective on 8 November.

Early life

Bennett was born in Haifa, Israel, on 25 March 1972. He is the youngest of three sons born to Jim and Myrna (née Lefko) Bennett, American-Jewish immigrants who moved to Israel from San Francisco in July 1967. Both his parents were from Ashkenazi Jewish backgrounds. His father's ancestors were from Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Bennett's paternal great-great-great-grandfather Julius Salomonson was from Łobżenica, Poland, and arrived in San Francisco in 1851 during the California Gold Rush. His mother's ancestors lived in Russia and Poland, and her parents immigrated to the United States prior to World War II. They later moved to Israel, joining their daughter's family there, and settled on Vitkin Street in Haifa, close to where Bennett and his brothers grew up. Some of his mother's family members who remained in Poland were murdered in the Holocaust.

Bennett's parents were raised in non-Orthodox Jewish homes and were progressive activists during the 1960s. His father was arrested while taking part in an anti-racism sit-in protest in 1964. They later began to observe Modern Orthodox Judaism and embraced right-wing Israeli politics. After moving to Israel in 1967, they volunteered for a few months at kibbutz Dafna, where they studied the Hebrew language, then settled in the Ahuza neighborhood of Haifa. Jim Bennett found a job in the Technion, working for its fundraising team, and became a successful real estate broker and real estate entrepreneur. Myrna Bennett was the deputy director general of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel's northern region.

In the summer of 1973, when Bennett was one year old, the family returned to San Francisco at the urging of his mother. With the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, Jim Bennett returned to Israel to fight in the Israel Defense Forces, serving in an artillery unit on the Golan Heights front. Following the war, the rest of the family returned to Israel at his request as he was held in reserve duty for months after the war. Bennett's parents ultimately decided to stay permanently in Israel.

In 1976, when Bennett was four years old, the family moved to Montreal for two years as part of his father's job. Upon returning to Haifa, Bennett began attending Carmel elementary school. When he was in second grade, the family moved to Teaneck, New Jersey for two years, again as part of his father's job. While living in New Jersey, Bennett attended Yavneh Academy. The family returned to Haifa when Bennett was ten. During Bennett's childhood, he visited San Francisco on family vacations nearly every summer.

Bennett has two brothers; they are Asher, a former Israeli Navy submarine officer and businessman based in the United Kingdom, and Daniel, an accountant for Zim Integrated Shipping Services. Bennett attended Yavne Yeshiva High School in Haifa and became a group leader (''madrich'') in the religious Zionist youth movement Bnei Akiva.

Military service

Bennett was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1990. He served in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, and after his regular service was selected for officer training. He was given a choice of remaining in Sayeret Matkal but as a regular operator rather than a commander or transferring to the Maglan commando unit to receive a command position and chose to transfer to Maglan. He became a company commander in the Maglan unit.

Bennett was discharged from active service after six years but continued to serve in the reserves and attained the rank of major. During the time that Bennett was living in the United States and building his career as a software entrepreneur, he repeatedly traveled to Israel to do reserve duty. Bennett served during the First Intifada and in the Israeli security zone in Lebanon during the 1982–2000 South Lebanon conflict. He commanded many operations. Among other missions, he served as an officer in Operation Grapes of Wrath.

After his regular IDF service, Bennett received a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the Second Intifada, he participated in Operation Defensive Shield.

He was called up as a reservist in the Maglan special forces unit during the 2006 Lebanon War and participated in a search and destroy mission behind enemy lines, operating against Hezbollah rocket launchers.

One of Bennett's actions as a commando officer became highly controversial. During Operation Grapes of Wrath, while leading a force of 67 Maglan soldiers operating in southern Lebanon, Bennett radioed for support after his unit came under mortar fire. The IDF launched an artillery barrage to cover his force, and the shelling hit a United Nations compound in which civilians were taking refuge, an incident that became known as the Qana massacre. A total of 106 Lebanese civilians were killed.

The incident resulted in a wave of international condemnation, and the subsequent diplomatic pressure caused Israel to end Operation Grapes of Wrath sooner than planned. Journalist Yigal Sarna, writing in Israeli national tabloid ''Yedioth Ahronoth'', argued that Bennett displayed "poor judgement" during the operation. Sarna wrote that "Bennett led a force of 67 combat troops into Lebanon. At a certain point, he decided to ignore orders and change operational plans, without coordinating these moves with his superiors, who in his mind were cowardly, and not steadfast enough. Near the village of Kfar Kana, Bennett's troops were caught in an ambush."

Citing a "senior army figure", journalist Raviv Drucker said that Bennett's radio call for support after his unit came under fire was "hysterical" and contributed to the loss of life which occurred. Bennett responded: "I have now been subjected to an attack claiming that I am 'responsible for the massacre in Kfar Kana.' Heroism will not be investigated. Keep looking in the archives. My military file is available for viewing, and it's waiting for you." Former members of Bennett's unit wrote a letter defending him, saying: "Naftali ... led many successful operations that led to the elimination of Hezbollah terrorists deep in enemy territory." Other officers involved in the operation, including one who was Bennett's deputy during the Qana incident, also denied that he had changed plans without consulting his superiors.

In October 2023, immediately following the start of the Gaza war, Bennett enlisted to do reserve duty, serving in the emergency storage unit of the IDF's Technological and Logistics Directorate.

Business career

In 1999, Bennett co-founded Cyota, an anti-fraud software company, and became its CEO. He moved to New York City in 2000 to oversee Cyota's corporate development, settling on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and lived there for four years. In 2005, the company was sold to RSA Security for $145 million, making Bennett a multimillionaire. A stipulation of the deal allowed the Israeli arm of Cyota to remain intact. As of 2013, 400 Israelis were employed at the company's Israeli offices in Beersheba and Herzliya.

Bennett was the CEO of Soluto, a technology company providing cloud-based service that enables remote support for personal computers and mobile devices in 2009, at a time when he and partner Lior Golan were engaged in raising funds for myriad Israeli technology startup companies. Soluto had hitherto raised $20 million from investors, including venture capital funds Giza Venture Capital, Proxima Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Index Ventures, Michael Arrington's CrunchFund, and Eric Schmidt's Innovation Endeavors and Initial Capital. The sale of Soluto for a reported $100–130 million to the American company Asurion was finalized in October 2013.

In June 2021, ''Forbes Israel'' reported that Bennett was expected to make $5 million from his investment in the American fintech company Payoneer. Bennett invested several hundred thousand dollars in the company before entering politics. Payoneer is set to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange with a $3.3 billion valuation after reaching a SPAC merger with FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp in February 2021.

Political career

From 2010 to 2012, Bennett served as the director of the Yesha Council. In April 2011, together with Ayelet Shaked, he co-founded My Israel, which claims to have 94,000 Israeli members. In April 2012, he founded a movement named Yisraelim ("Israelis"). The movement's main goals include increasing Zionism among centre-right supporters, increasing dialogue between the religious and secular communities, and promoting "The Israel Stability Initiative."

Bennett was elected the leader of The Jewish Home party in 2012. He was reelected as the party's leader in 2015 and 2017.

Following his election to the Knesset, and before he could take his seat, Bennett had to renounce