Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in IsraelEsconómico. You can read it
Born in the northern city of Haifa on March 25, 1972, Naftali Bennett pursued an entrepreneurial career in the information technology sector that made him a millionaire before entering politics, in a path that eventually led him to become a Prime Minister of Israel.
A modern orthodox religious and on the right of the political spectrum, the new head of government favors the free market over monopolies and state regulation and advocates better economic opportunities for the most lagging sectors.
He has been married since 1999 to Gilat, 44, with whom he had four children. Gilat is a professional pastry chef and parent advisor.
The son of American immigrants from California, Bennett served as a company commander in the elite Sayaret Matkal and Maglan units of the Israel Armed Forces (FD) before enlisting to study law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Upon graduation, he began an impressive entrepreneurial career with the founding of Cyota, a provider of online security and anti-fraud products, where he served as CEO in New York.
Bennett sold Cyota in 2005 for $ 145 million and later repeated the feat: he helped found Soluto, another software development company, which sold for $ 130 million in 2009.
Consecrated in the field of business, he returned to Israel and landed in the field of politics joining the ranks of the Likud, the party led by Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister he has now helped to oust from power.
Later, in 2012, he became the leader of HaBait HaIehudi (The Jewish Home), with which he achieved his first resounding triumph by obtaining thirteen seats in the 2013 legislative elections, a mark that no religious Zionist party had reached in some time. 36 years.
The man who added the “change block”
Already recognized by the public and definitively embarking on a political career, Bennett served as Netanyahu’s Minister of Defense, Religious Services, Economy, Education and Diaspora Affairs during various cabinets between 2013 and 2020.
By the time the political process that led to four elections in two years unfolded in Israel, Bennett was already focused on Yamina, the alliance of right-wing parties with which he tried, with no luck, to overtake the coalition behind successive Netanyahu governments.
Until, as the American newspaper Los Angeles Times affirmed, when he was consecrated prime minister after having obtained only seven seats in the legislative elections of March this year.
It is that Bennett’s figure ended up being the only one who could add the right-wing parties to the “change bloc” led by Yair Lapid, the leader of Yesh Atid (There is a Future), center-left and with 17 seats in the recent elections the Knesset (Israel’s parliament).
Although with those seventeen seats he was second behind Likud, Lapid needed to ally with Bennett to be able to build the coalition that includes Yamina, Israel Beiteinu (Israel, Our Home) and Tikvá Hadasha (New Hope) from the right.
Lapid, who had been commissioned to form a government in May, had only the support of the Labor Party and Meretz, from the left, insufficient to form a government.
A political enigma
“A combination of chance, perseverance and more than a touch of crude political opportunism put Bennett in a position to sideline his longtime friend and mentor, Prime Minister Netanyahu,” summarized journalist Laura King in the Los Angeles Times. .
The reporter, like much of the international analysts, called Bennett a political “enigma” to follow closely now that he assumed power in Israel.
For now, it is known that the new prime minister opposes the creation of a Palestinian state, supports the extension of Jewish settlements in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and the modernization of religion in the country, although within a framework orthodox.
The rest will remain to be seen in a new government that is already underway and that has just taken over the reins of Israel’s future.
