Just over a year ago, Naftali Bennett became the Prime Minister of Israel through deceit, lies, and, most importantly, in complete disregard of the conservative political platform and principles regarding coalition partners that he promised just prior to Election Day. Naftali Bennett’s treats the Israeli public, which includes this wrier, as if we are suckers, unable to understand our basic right to elect the candidate who represents the electoral will of the majority. The level of cynicism and condescension towards the Israeli public has reached levels that we in Israel have never encountered, leaving many of us stunned and feeling a sense of deep betrayal.
In recent days, as his ruling coalition seems to have reached its final days and is on the verge of losing its parliamentary majority, he has doubled down and spread his poisonous and false accusations against the opposition and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Bennett expects us to ignore our gut instincts and ignore his dishonesty towards the voting public and ignore the fact that he is Prime Minister with negligible electoral support (under 5 % of the public).
Bennett has welcomed into his ruling coalition anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist parties including extreme left wing politicians and Israeli-Arab parties that are front organizations for the Muslim Brotherhood. It is worthy to note that the Muslim Brotherhood has been banned from any and all politic activity in most Arab countries including Egypt and Jordan, but not in the Bennett government. The left wing parties alongside the Israeli-Arab parties have been vocal supporters of convicted Palestinian Arab terrorists and their organizations, those barbarians who have, over the years, murdered thousands of Israelis, Jews as well as non-Jews. The current governing coalition has empowered and encouraged Palestinian Arab terror and the majority of the public is clearly putting the blame on Bennett and his coalition partners.
To truly comprehend the level of distrust that the public harbors against Naftali Bennett, two examples suffice. Last month, during the wave of terror attacks during the Muslim Ramadan period, that took the lives of 15 Israeli citizens, he refrained from visiting the bereaving families of the victims, in case he was refused entrance by the families themselves. At the one family he did visit, that of a slain Yamam (elite police unit) officer, he was publicly rebuffed. The second indication of the level of anger at Naftali Bennett has been his inability to visit markets and take part in other public appearances due to the expected outcry against his presence, as if he is beyond the pale, the very opposite of Israel’s political history in which politicians have always been close to the public and enjoyed “rubbing elbows” with them.
Understanding what motivated Naftali Bennett to abandon his pre-election promises has been articulately portrayed by MK Bezalel Smotrich, chairman of the Religious Zionism party; he pointed out that Bennett had joined terror supporters in order to be prime minister - at any cost. "Bennett, with his own hands, torpedoed a right-wing government [which would have been headed by Netanyahu whose party received 30 Knesset seats and, with Smotrich and the haredim, needed Bennett's then seven and Sa'ar's six to reach] and in a process planned ahead of time, even before the elections, ripped apart the nationalist camp and joined the extreme Left and anti-Zionist terror supporters in order to become prime minister at any cost. Bennett deceived, tricked, and lied throughout, and he continues to do this in his letter which praises a government that excommunicates over half of the nation and presents it as a holy martyr, while he incites against the Right, slanders Religious Zionism, and calls on the Left to begin a civil war."
Naftali Bennett’s underlying motivation to betray the public could easily be clarified within the realm of psychoanalysis. Due to ethical considerations, we will have to suffice with examining his public persona through the prism of political historians. “The March of Folly” was published in 1984 by Barbara Tuchman, an American political historian. The book is about one of the most compelling paradoxes of history: the pursuit by political leaders of policies contrary to their own interests despite the availability of feasible alternatives. Tuchman applies the concept of folly to 'historical mistakes'. In Tuchman’s view the only way to account for such self-destructive policies pursued by political leaders despite forebodings that it was mistaken was to interpret these decisions as beyond rational explanation, or in other words “follies”.
From day one in office, Bennett has expressed an overabundance of self-confidence, never admitting doubt or mistakes. Due to his lackluster performance and failing leadership, he has been forced to abandon without exception his political ideals and election promises to keep his ruling coalition in power. This shortcut to power he pursued has brought Israel to the brink of disaster, everyday more and more of the public senses that we are sitting on a ticking time bomb waiting for it to explode.
Naftali Bennett, by refusing to move in to the official State residence of the Prime Minister in Jerusalem, has empowered the Biden administration and the European Union to question Israel’s continued sovereignty over its capital, the united City of Jerusalem.
There has been extortion of billions of shekels for the Arab sector with little if any true accountability of how the funding will be spent.
Tens of thousands of illegally built homes by Bedouin Arabs on state land will be approved after-the-fact in complete disregard to the building and zoning regulations that are applied within Jewish communities.
Naftali Bennett has joined the list of political leaders who rate a chapter in “The March of Folly” without remorse, and has put Israel on the path of being transformed into a nation that, at a critical historical crossorad, as did The Kingdom of Troy, made decisions that brought on itself the self-imposed destruction of a powerful Kingdom of its time.
Bennett will be remembered not only as a blip in history, but as a brief and failing political anomaly. His legacy will always be one of deceit, defamation and resulting violence. The widespread harm that Bennett has inflicted on Israeli society will resonate and be felt for years, and only when the existence of his government is ended once and for all can we in Israel begin the arduous effort to undue much of the damage inflicted on the Jewish nation and the State of Israel.
