Naftali Bennett
Naftali Bennett (Hebrew: נַפְתָּלִי בֶּנֶט, romanized: Naftālī Beneṭ, pronounced [naftaˈli ˈbenet]; born 25 March 1972) is an Israeli politician who served as the 13th prime minister of Israel from 13 June 2021 to 30 June 2022, and as the 3rd Alternate Prime Minister of Israel 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, sold in 2013 for a reported $100–130 million.
Quotes
edit- I will do everything in my power to prevent a Palestinian state.
- Naftali Bennett: I Will Do Everything in My Power to Prevent a Palestinian State (2012) [paywalled source]
- If you catch terrorists, you have to simply kill them.
- “The land is ours”: that is pretty much the end of the debate. “I will do everything in my power, forever, to fight against a Palestinian state being founded in the Land of Israel.”
- The Party Faithful (January 13, 2013)
- “These are the decisions that take real leadership,” he continued. “That we will never agree to give up Jerusalem, a united city under Israeli sovereignty, and only Israeli. We will not accept a terrorist Palestinian state, we will not accept an agreement based on the 67 lines.
“We will not exchange territory as if we were doing cut-and-paste on some Word document on the computer. We will not agree to a border along Highway 6, meaning rockets on Highway 4.
“We will not stay in a government that endangers our children’s future and divides our capital due to international pressure. We won’t sit in a government that makes the easy, and dangerous, decision,” he declared.- Bennett: No to '67 Lines,' No to Split Jerusalem (January 7,2014)
- Trump's victory is an opportunity for Israel to immediately retract the notion of a Palestinian state in the centre of the country, which would hurt our security and just cause.
- The era of a Palestinian state is over.
- If there's one thing that keeps me up at night, it's not Iran but the future of the Jews in America, and we have to fix this together. If we don't act urgently, we're going to be losing millions of Jews to assimilation.
- Speech at American Jewish Committee conference in Jerusalem - Future of U.S. Jews 'Keeps Me Up at Night,' Israeli Minister Tells Jewish Gathering (June 12, 2018) [paywalled source]
- The world order as we know it is changing. The world is much less stable, and our region too is changing every day. These are difficult, tragic times. Our hearts are with the civilians of eastern Ukraine who were caught up in this situation.
- Bennett refrains from condemning Russia in first remarks since invasion of Ukraine (February 24, 2022).
- Are you seriously keep on asking me about Palestinian civilians [sic]? What's wrong with you?
- Sky News interview following the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel's subsequent military response (October 2023)
- Instead of whining for the past 80 years and building your own future, you have focused on killing the Jews. It’s time the Palestinians stopped whining.
- Protesters, fire alarm disrupt former prime minister of Israel (April 11, 2025)
Quotes about Naftali Bennett
edit- He is my nemesis. I never felt I would say that
- Dorit Rabinyan Interview (2017)
Video clips
editUnusually hostile BBC HardTalk interview of Bennett on Gaza War
