Naftali Bennett (25 March 1972-) was Defense Minister of Israel from 8 November 2019 to 17 May 2020 (succeeding Benjamin Netanyahu and preceding Benny Gantz) and Prime Minister of Israel from 13 June 2021 to 30 June 2022 (succeeding Benjamin Netanyahu and preceding Yair Lapid).
Biography[]
Naftali Bennett was born in Haifa, Israel, the son of American-Jewish immigrants with ancestral ties to Poland, Germany, and the Netherlands. Bennett's parents were left-wing converts to conservatism, and Bennett lived in Canada, New Jersey, and Israel during his childhood. He was drafted into the IDF in 1990 and served in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, fighting in the First Intifada and the South Lebanon conflict, and he later served in the Second Intifada and the Second Lebanon War as a reservist. He was involved in the 1996 Qana massacre, making a hysterical radio call that resulted in the massacre of 106 Lebanese civilians. Bennett went on to become a software entrepreneur on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and he entered politics during the 2010s, cofounding the right-wing "My Israel" internet movement in 2011 and becoming leader of The Jewish Home party in 2012. He served as Education Minister from 2015 to 2019 and Defense Minister from 2019 to 2020, and he and Ayelet Shaked co-founded The New Right party in 2018. In 2021, he agreed to a rotation government with liberal politician Yair Lapid in spite of his own ultranationalist ideology, and he served as Prime Minister from June 2021 to June 2022. He attempted to mediate the Russian invasion of Ukraine while refusing requests from Ukraine for military equipment and refusing to call out Vladimir Putin by name for war crimes. In 2022, after MK Idit Silman left the governing coalition and deprived it of its majority, Bennett dissolved the Knesset and allowed Yair Lapid to take his place as he stood down.