Western politicians know that Netanyahu has become a name one should no longer be associated with, but concerned voters know far less about Bennett
That Benjamin Netanyahu has become problematic even for some of Israel’s larger backers is no secret, and at the moment his open support comes mostly from right-wing governments that clearly see no “big problem” in the destruction of Gaza. Of course, the right knows it has an electorate beneath it that approves of war crimes when staged by Israel, but a particularly hypocritical stance comes from occasional critics of Netanyahu who at the same time like to point out that Israel “has an opposition.”
If it does, they say, it would be moral to support that opposition and quietly distance oneself from a man who has become synonymous with chaos in the Middle East. But which opposition? Because what’s often meant here is former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The problem? Bennett is the same thing as Netanyahu.
Take Bennett’s latest statement that Netanyahu is “controlled by Ben-Gvir, Smotrich, and the ultra-Orthodox parties.” Whether they truly “control” him or simply “come in handy” for him is debatable, but let’s say he’s right, since it is a fact that they are precisely the ones securing his parliamentary majority. Still, that claim on its own is not complete and does not give an accurate picture of Bennett in the context of Israeli policy toward the region and its neighbors.
In reality, this is a pre-election makeover by a man who wants to appear as a “responsible alternative,” even though for years he was one of the most consistent ideologues of the very order that produced today’s catastrophe — the one Netanyahu is now turning into reality. Bennett criticizes Netanyahu’s dependence on extremists, but in doing so tries to hide his own role in normalizing a politics that views the Palestinian question exclusively through military force, demographic control, and the permanent denial of statehood.
Netanyahu is dangerous as a cynical master of survival. He runs the occupation through tactics of delay, occasional diplomatic theater, American protective mechanisms, and coalition blackmail. Bennett is dangerous in a different way, and in some respects an even more radical one, because he wants to make that same project clearer, faster, and ideologically stripped bare. With Netanyahu there is always room for fog, for talk of negotiations that never happen, for the illusion that something might change. With Bennett that fog lifts. For him, a Palestinian state is an existential threat, the West Bank is a space of Israeli sovereignty, and regional adversaries are targets for elimination.
As far back as 2013, Bennett said there would be no Palestinian state on the “small land of Israel” between the Jordan and the Mediterranean, adding that such a state would be “a catastrophe for the next 200 years.” Two years later he declared that Israel, even under pressure from the world, would not voluntarily commit suicide. Statements like these form the core of his political philosophy.
In this respect Bennett can appear even more extreme than Netanyahu. For years, Netanyahu sold the international public the illusion of a process, while on the ground he expanded settlements and maintained the fragmentation of Palestinian territory. Bennett has openly advocated for the annexation of Area C, roughly 60% of the West Bank, alongside Palestinian “autonomy on steroids” in the remaining enclaves. Under that logic, Palestinians would be left with a flag, taxes, and local administration, but no real statehood. That is apartheid translated into the language of managerial efficiency.
During one discussion about Palestinian prisoners, he said that captured “terrorists” simply need to be killed, adding afterward that he had killed many Arabs in his life and had no problem with that. Later, speaking about Gaza, he said that those crossing the fence should be shot and killed. Asked whether that also applied to children, he answered that “they are not children, they are terrorists.” He also added that he would not give the Arabs a single additional centimeter of land.
Bennett’s rise
Naftali Bennett was born on March 25, 1972, in Haifa, into a family of American Jewish immigrants. He served in the Israeli special forces units Sayeret Matkal and Maglan, earned a law degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and before entering politics was a tech entrepreneur. He co-founded Cyota, a company focused on internet security and fraud protection, which was sold to the American firm RSA Security in 2005.
He entered politics through Netanyahu’s inner circle and served as his chief of staff from 2006 to 2008. He later took over leadership of the Jewish Home party, then founded New Right and led the Yamina alliance. In Netanyahu’s governments he held posts as minister of economy, religious affairs, education, diaspora affairs, and defense. From June 2021 to June 2022 he was Israel’s prime minister in a short-lived coalition with Yair Lapid, which temporarily interrupted Netanyahu’s long-standing dominance. Ahead of the 2026 elections he returned to the center of politics through an alliance with Lapid called Together, seeking to present himself as the main alternative to Netanyahu.
So it is this same politician who today accuses Ben-Gvir and Smotrich of extremism. That accusation serves to launder his own image. Bennett can be, especially in front of a select audience, more polite, more educated, and more palatable to Western television, but his political logic remains just as dangerous for Palestinians. In some circumstances he even functions “more efficiently” than Netanyahu’s current coalition, because he doesn’t add the caricatured rhetoric of the messianic right to the violence, but instead packages it in the language of a responsible state, security, and strategic discipline.
Gaza exposed the emptiness of Bennett’s alleged moderation. When Sky News asked him about Palestinian civilians in hospitals, including babies in incubators, after Israel had cut off the electricity supply, Bennett responded by asking why he was even being asked about Palestinian civilians. He said Israel was fighting “against Nazis” and added that he would not give electricity and water to Israel’s enemies. In a later post he claimed that almost every house, school, and hospital in Gaza was part of Hamas’s terrorist apparatus.
Netanyahu carried out such a policy through a war cabinet, generals, and coalition blackmail. Bennett gives it verbal clarity and the distorted moral self-assurance of a former commando who believes reality begins with the Israeli military’s security assessment.
Nor does Bennett offer a calmer approach toward Lebanon and Iran. His “octopus doctrine” has for years advocated striking Iran as the head of a network in which Hezbollah, Hamas, and other actors are merely the tentacles.
Netanyahu today is trapped by his own survival, corruption trials, coalition blackmail, and personal paranoia. Bennett arrives with the ambition of restoring a functional Israeli power. And that is precisely where his danger lies. He wants a cleaner, faster, more disciplined Israeli hegemony, with fewer ministerial scandals and more strategically directed violence. His criticism of Netanyahu is therefore a clash between two styles of the same policy, with Bennett in certain respects presenting himself as a colder, more efficient, and more ideologically bare-faced expression of Israeli extremism.
One day — and that day may be coming soon — the part of the West that no longer wants to embarrass itself before its own voters by supporting Netanyahu will say: here’s our change, here’s Bennett. And so the tragedy continues without end.
About the Author
Mario Hoffmann is an independent analyst and writer covering global economics, geopolitics, and international affairs. With a background in history and politics, he writes for EconoPuls to provide in-depth context on the stories shaping our world.
