‘I am running, my intent is to win, unite Israel, create growth and an Israeli renaissance,’ fmr Israeli PM Naftali Bennett tells ALL ISRAEL NEWS

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – Israelis will go to the polls in October for the first set of national elections in four years.

And what a tumultuous four years they have been.

As 10.2 million Israelis remembered our fallen soldiers and citizens this week, and celebrated the 78th year of our modern independence, polls show how divided and conflicted the public is.

Some surveys suggest the nation will punish current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, who first came to power in 1996, and thus has been serving as the nation’s premier on and off for three decades.

Why?

Because, they say, he was “sitting in the chair” on Oct. 7, 2023, and allowed it to happen.

The Hamas invasion of Israel resulted in the worst slaughter of Jews on a single day since the Holocaust.

Many Israelis say Netanyahu has stoked deep divisions in Israeli society by including in his government divisive and highly controversial, far-right-wing figures, like Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Netanyahu is also on trial on multiple corruption indictments, though he must be presumed innocent unless he is found guilty in a court of law.

Other surveys suggest the nation is poised to forgive Netanyahu for all this.

Why?

Because, they say, Bibi has brilliantly led Israeli military forces into battle against the Iranian regime – its nuclear and missile forces, and its most dangerous terror proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Houthis in Yemen – and dealt each massive and devastating blows.

There is little question that the upcoming election will be a referendum on Netanyahu’s leadership.

But it will also be a judgment on whether Bennett is suited to replace him.

WHAT IS BENNETT’S VISION FOR ISRAEL’S FUTURE

Despite the fact that Naftali Bennett is the only political figure since 2009 to oust Netanyahu from office and serve as Prime Minister (2021-2022) in his stead, few of the 60 million Evangelical Christians in the United States know much about Bennett.

Who is Netanyahu’s leading rival?

What does he believe?

What is his vision for Israel’s future?

What is his vision for a post-war Middle East?

With only six months to go before the elections, I asked the once and possibly future Prime Minister of Israel to sit down for an interview with ALL ISRAEL NEWS and THE ROSENBERG REPORT, my weekly prime time news & analysis show that airs at 9 p.m. eastern on Thursdays on TBN, the most watched Christian television network in the U.S.

We are a non-profit and thus a non-partisan news organization.

We don’t endorse political candidates or parties.

Rather, we want to help our readers and viewers understand the leading voices and the emerging trendlines.

I was grateful when Bennett – who turned 54 on March 25 – agreed to my request.

Among the various times I have interviewed him over the years, the last two were at his home in Raanana, central Israel.

This time, he suggested we meet at Tel Baruch Beach, north of Tel Aviv.

We spent nearly an hour together on Monday and recorded two episodes. 

Part One aired on TBN last night. Part Two will air next Thursday.

Over the next few days, ALL ISRAEL NEWS will publish several articles based on those interviews so our readers can learn and understand Bennett’s views on a wide variety of topics.

IS BENNETT DEFINITELY RUNNING?

Officially, Bennett has not held a campaign kick-off event.

So, that’s the first question I asked him.

Are you really running in 2026?

“Yes, I am running,” Bennett told me.

“My intent is to win, become Israel’s next prime minister, unite Israel, and then bring in the best era Israel has ever seen of growth, of security, and of unity.”

“Unity,” he said again, stressing the word.

He believes that Israelis are craving political, social, and cultural unity after war and deep and traumatic divisions.

He also believes he is the only leader who can bring such unity and that his record proves it.

I’m running to bring about “an Israeli renaissance,” Bennett told me.

Bennett said he was hesitant to criticize Netanyahu, though he did so several times.

Rather, he wanted to demonstrate how his brand of leadership could help Israel flourish after this terrible time of war and become “The Solution Nation,” a country whose technological innovations could solve many global problems.

ISN’T NETANYAHU ISRAEL’S WINSTON CHURCHILL, A DOMINANT AND SUCCESSFUL WARTIME LEADER?

Winston Churchill is Netanyahu’s hero, I reminded Bennett.

Churchill was a strong, dominant, successful leader of a small country.

He warned of the Nazi threat before anyone in the West saw it.

And he forged an historic partnership with a strong and decisive American president to win the war and save Western civilization.

“Hasn’t Netanyahu become Churchill?” I asked.

In some ways, yes, Bennett conceded.

But after the war, he noted, Clement Attlee won the elections.

Churchill lost.

“What happened there is the British public wanted to open a new page and rebuild,” Bennett said. “That was Britain after the war.”

Today, he believes the same dynamic is true.

“The Israeli public wants to open a new page. There were so many mistakes that led to this war. Like, accepting the Hezbollah and Hamas on our borders.”

“The Israeli public is going to be asked one big question,” Bennett explained. 

“Who can fix Israel? Who can lead Israel? Who can unite Israel?”

“We're going to have to go through really a renaissance of rebuilding Israel.”

“Netanyahu has done good things [and] has done less good things. It’s been 30 years. So, I'm not going to attack him. I’m just going to say the Israeli people are looking to the future and not backward.”

“Is he to blame?” Bennett asked of Bibi. “How much blame? How much responsibility?”

Those are important questions, Bennett agreed, but more important is this, he said.

“How do we build a better future? They're looking for the younger generation that will unite Israel. And in that sense, I think we're going to look at a big victory, for change and for growth.”

IS BENNETT LEADING IN THE POLLS?

Monday was a gorgeous, sunny, brilliant day of blue skies, white puffy clouds, and a refreshing breeze coming in off the Mediterranean Sea.

Bennett looked tanned, refreshed, and buoyant.

He struck me as a man increasingly confident that he will soon lead the country again and is feeling significantly better prepared than last time.

For three weeks in a row, a leading Israeli pollster has found that if the elections were held right now, Bennett would likely become the next prime minister.

Bennett’s party won only six seats in the Knesset in 2021.

But if the elections were held right now, it would win 24 seats, according to pollster Menachem Lazar, who published a survey in the Israeli newspaper Maariv on April 16. 

True, Netanyahu’s Likud Party would win 25 seats, one more than Bennett.

However, the Maariv poll found that only Bennett could assemble a coalition of 61 seats in parliament, securing him the majority.

By contrast, the poll found that Netanyahu could only pull together a coalition of only 49 seats.

The remaining seats are expected to be won by Arab parties, which, after two and a half years of war, neither Bennett nor Netanyahu says they are willing to bring into their future governments.

There is one poll from Channel 14 showing Netanyahu leading and Bennett well behind. 

Other polls suggest that Bennett is ahead but not quite able to eke out a majority, while indicating that Netanyahu would have a very hard time mustering a majority.

To be clear: I’m not predicting a Bennett victory.

I’m just trying to give you the lay of the land as we head into the high-stakes campaign season.

WHO IS NAFTALI BENNETT? A PRIMER FOR EVANGELICALS

For readers unfamiliar with Netanyahu’s leading rival, here are a few basic facts.

A former commando in the IDF’s most elite special forces unit, Sayeret Matkal – roughly equivalent to Delta Force in the U.S. – Bennett later served in Israel’s high-tech sector.

He co-founded and later sold one company for $145 million.

Later, he was CEO of another company that sold for more than $100 million. 

Recruited by Netanyahu into the right-wing Likud Party, Bennett served from 2006 to 2008 as Bibi’s chief of staff.

But the two had a major falling out.

Bennett set up his own right-wing political party, gained a committed grassroots following, and later served in various Cabinet posts under Netanyahu, including as Israel’s Economy Minister, Religious Affairs Minister, Education Minister, and eventually as Bibi’s Defense Minister.

But the ultimate break between the two men came in 2021.

Bennett was recruited by Opposition Leaders Yair Lapid of the center-left and Benny Gantz of the center-right to form a coalition to oust Netanyahu from office after Bibi had served 12 straight years as premier.

Bennett was named Prime Minister on June 13, 2021, with a coalition that included parties from the right, center, and left of the political spectrum, and for the first time in Israeli history, had the support of an Arab party.

Bennett served until June 30, 2022, when he rotated with Lapid and became Alternate Prime Minister.

Netanyahu, however – whom I’ve described as a “shrewd political cat” with at least nine lives, if not more – was not finished.

He and political allies were able to turn the tables and oust Lapid and Bennett from power in the fall of 2022.

On Dec. 29, 2022, Bibi returned to power, cobbling together an entirely right-wing government that has endured for a full four-year term, a rarity in Israeli politics.