Naftali Bennett 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.
65 Facts About Naftali Bennett
2.
Naftali Bennett entered politics in 2006, serving as Chief of Staff for Benjamin Netanyahu until 2008.
3.
In 2012, Naftali Bennett was elected as the party leader of The Jewish Home.
4.
Naftali Bennett served under Prime Minister Netanyahu as Minister of Economy and Religious Services from 2013 to 2015, before being appointed as Minister of Education in 2015.
5.
In December 2018, Naftali Bennett defected from The Jewish Home to form the New Right, a member of the Yamina alliance.
6.
Naftali Bennett regained his seat in the September 2019 Knesset election and was appointed Minister of Defense, before leaving the position the following year.
7.
In 2020, Naftali Bennett succeeded Shaked to become the leader of the Yamina alliance.
8.
On 2 June 2021, Naftali Bennett agreed to a rotation government with Yair Lapid, whereby Naftali Bennett would serve as Israel's Prime Minister until 2023, after which Lapid would assume the role until 2025.
9.
On 20 June 2022, Naftali Bennett announced he would call for a vote to dissolve the Knesset and step down as prime minister shortly after its dissolution, to be succeeded by Lapid.
10.
Lapid succeeded him as Prime Minister on 1 July 2022, while Naftali Bennett succeeded Lapid as the Alternate Prime Minister.
11.
Naftali Bennett was born in Haifa, Israel, on 25 March 1972.
12.
Naftali Bennett is the youngest of three sons born to Jim and Myrna Bennett, American-Jewish immigrants who moved to Israel from San Francisco in July 1967.
13.
Naftali Bennett's parents were raised in non-Orthodox Jewish homes and were progressive activists during the 1960s.
14.
Naftali Bennett's father was arrested while taking part in an anti-racism sit-in protest in 1964.
15.
Jim Naftali Bennett found a job in the Technion, working for its fundraising team, and became a successful real estate broker turned real estate entrepreneur.
16.
Myrna Naftali Bennett was the deputy director general of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel's northern region.
17.
In 1976, when Naftali Bennett was four years old, the family moved to Montreal for two years as part of his father's job.
18.
Naftali 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.
19.
Naftali Bennett attended Yavne Yeshiva High School in Haifa, and became a youth leader with the religious Zionist youth organization Bnei Akiva.
20.
Naftali Bennett was drafted into the Israel Defense Forces in 1990.
21.
Naftali Bennett served in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, and after his regular service was selected for officer training.
22.
Naftali Bennett 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.
23.
Naftali Bennett became a company commander in the Maglan unit.
24.
Naftali Bennett was discharged from active service after six years but continued to serve in the reserves and attained the rank of major.
25.
Naftali Bennett 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.
26.
Journalist Yigal Sarna, writing in Israeli national tabloid Yedioth Ahronoth, argued that Naftali Bennett displayed "poor judgement" during the operation.
27.
Naftali Bennett moved to the Upper East Side of Manhattan in 2000 to build a career as a software entrepreneur.
28.
Naftali Bennett was sold in 2005 to RSA Security for $145 million, making Bennett a multimillionaire.
29.
Naftali Bennett served as 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.
30.
In June 2021, Forbes Israel reported that Naftali Bennett is expected to make $5 million from his investment in the American fintech company Payoneer.
31.
Naftali Bennett invested several hundred thousand dollars in the company before entering politics.
32.
From 2010 to 2012, Naftali Bennett served as the director of the Yesha Council.
33.
Naftali Bennett was elected the leader of The Jewish Home party in 2012.
34.
Naftali Bennett was reelected as the party's leader in 2015 and 2017.
35.
Naftali Bennett was appointed Minister of Economy and Minister of Religious Services in March 2013.
36.
Naftali Bennett later appointed Ze'ev Elkin to the role of Jerusalem Affairs Minister.
37.
In October 2015, Naftali Bennett resigned from the Knesset in order to allow Shuli Mualem to take his seat.
38.
Naftali Bennett's resignation took place under the Norwegian Law, which allowed ministers to resign their seats when in the cabinet but return to the Knesset if they leave the government.
39.
In December 2018, Naftali Bennett was among the Jewish Home MKs to leave the party and form the breakaway New Right party.
40.
The list won seven seats in the election, and Naftali Bennett regained his Knesset seat.
41.
In November 2019, Naftali Bennett rejoined Netanyahu's government as Minister of Defense.
42.
On 30 May, Naftali Bennett announced that he would serve as prime minister in a rotation government until August 2023, at which point Lapid would take over as prime minister until 2025.
43.
Naftali Bennett responded that he would "work to reinforce Israeli-Moroccan relations in all areas".
44.
That month, Naftali Bennett made his first visit to the United States, where he met Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and AIPAC CEO Howard Kohr.
45.
Naftali Bennett subsequently met President Joe Biden on 27 August 2021.
46.
Naftali Bennett talked about fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and combatting political polarization.
47.
Naftali Bennett warned of Iran's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, stating that Israel would not allow it.
48.
On 5 March 2022, Naftali Bennett met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in order to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine in a meeting coordinated with the United States, France, and Germany.
49.
The Kremlin stated that Naftali Bennett had offered to mediate between Putin and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
50.
Naftali Bennett then flew on the same day to Germany to brief German chancellor Olaf Scholz, updated French President Macron by telephone, and spoke with Zelenskyy twice in the evening, but few details were disclosed publicly.
51.
Natan Sharansky, former head of the Jewish Agency, criticised Naftali Bennett, saying he was afraid to call out Putin by name for war crimes, and said Israel should provide defensive arms to Ukraine.
52.
Naftali Bennett later faced criticism for putting himself forward as neutral mediator amid global condemnation of Putin, while refusing requests from Ukraine for military equipment.
53.
Naftali Bennett's positions have been described as "ultra-nationalist", and Naftali Bennett describes himself, and has been described, as "more right wing" than Netanyahu.
54.
Naftali Bennett had been labeled a "pragmatist" and an "opportunist".
55.
Naftali Bennett opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, and supports cutting taxes.
56.
In spite of his expressed right-wing views against a Palestinian state, while engaged in coalition negotiations for a unity government with Yair Lapid and other party leaders following the 2021 Knesset election, during which he was offered the prime ministership, Naftali Bennett agreed to a policy of not annexing any territory in the West Bank and to not build any new settlements while serving as prime minister in a potential unity government.
57.
Naftali Bennett believes in less government regulation of the private sector and that private businesses are the engine of economic growth.
58.
Naftali Bennett has said Israel needs to break the monopoly of the tycoons, the major labor unions, and the Ministry of Defense, which in his opinion are strangling Israel's economy.
59.
Naftali Bennett believes the key to reducing disparities is equality of opportunity and investment in education in the periphery, to give tools to populations of weaker economic backgrounds.
60.
Naftali Bennett has pledged to remove heavy bureaucratic challenges to small and medium-sized Israeli businesses.
61.
Naftali Bennett acknowledged that he was seeking to reduce Israel's economic dependence on the EU to reduce its influence on Israel.
62.
Naftali Bennett has led a push to integrate Haredi men, many of whom are unemployed, into the workforce.
63.
In October 2021, Naftali Bennett's administration approved plans to spend billions of dollars to improve conditions for Israel's Arab minority.
64.
An adherent of Orthodox Judaism, Naftali Bennett opposes the implementation of same-sex marriage in Israel, "just as we don't recognize milk and meat together as kosher", but has expressed support for equivalent rights such as tax breaks for same-sex couples.
65.
Naftali Bennett was secular, but following her husband she now observes the Sabbath and kashrut.