Netanyahu, Negev, Nationalism: Israel’s Naftali Bennett
There’s a new man in Jerusalem.
Sworn in on June 13th, 2021, Naftali Bennett is Israel’s newest Prime Minister. According to the BBC, Bennett hailed himself as “more right-wing than” his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu.
To nationalist Israelis and war-hungry Americans, Bennett’s electoral victory promises the continuance of Israel’s hegemony in the Middle East. But, after all, such hegemony comes at a cost. In a country reflecting on its recent conflict with a battered Palestine, Bennett’s “ultra-nationalism” will hurt Israel’s already-worsening international reputation, placing attempts at peace with Palestine far out of reach.
Bennett, the leader of the Yamina Party (from the Hebrew for “rightwards”), served with distinction in multiple branches of Israel’s armed forces before starting Soluto, a cloud-based software company which he sold for over one hundred million dollars. Though a multimillionaire, Bennett never strayed far from the political sphere: his appointment comes as the crown jewel in his ten-year career in nationalist politics. Mocking the New York Times and Israel’s left-leaning Haaretz newspaper, Bennett disguised himself as an apologetic Israeli citizen, who apologized to everyone he came across until finally revealing himself and proclaiming: “Starting today, we stop apologizing.”
Bennett disguised and mocking “apologist” Israelis.
Despite his unwavering jingoism, Bennett’s administration ushers in a degree of domestic uncertainty: Yamina holds only 7 seats in the Knesset, Israel’s unicameral parliament. Bennett will be replaced in 2023 by Yair Lapid, Israel’s current Foreign Minister and noted centrist, as part of a power-sharing agreement which precariously passed the Knesset 60-59. Bennett will have to make his time in office count before his right-wing policies will be rolled back.
Most importantly, Bennett emphatically rejects the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine Conflict, whereby Palestine would become an independent, sovereign nation alongside Israel, occupying Gaza and the West Bank.
Unfortunately for Bennett, Israel’s largest benefactor disagrees. U.S. President Joe Biden has voiced his support for a two-state solution, and his desires are just as important as Bennett’s: according to the United States Congressional Research Service, the United States provided Israel with 3.8 billion dollars worth of aid in both 2019 and 2020. Historically, American contributions to Israel total over 146 billion dollars. Israel has long relied on the United States for missile defense and weaponry, but the United States needs Israel, too: IDF forces, wielding American arms, sometimes fight Syrians, who use Russian weapons. Thus, Israeli troops help give American strategists a crucial chance to test American weapons directly against those of Russia without the need for a war. Israel’s Iron Dome missile defenses are a prime example of weapons testing. Furthermore, Israel has the Middle East’s most dominant air force, has missiles capable of reaching Russia, and, according to the Institute for Policy Studies, “served as a conduit for U.S. arms to regimes and movements too unpopular in the United States for openly granting direct military assistance, such as apartheid South Africa, the Islamic Republic in Iran, the military junta in Guatemala, and the Nicaraguan Contras. Israeli military advisers have assisted the Contras, the Salvadoran junta, and foreign occupation forces in Namibia and Western Sahara.”
Lastly, Israel has helped suppress violent islamist movements in Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine. Like a rich, manipulative, geopolitical puppeteer, the United States has invested in Israel so that they can be a “force for peace” in the Middle East. If there were a coup in Jordan, for instance, the U.S. would rely on Israel to quickly restore order. The Arab world knows all too well about Israel’s might, and, as such, relatively few disturbances occur. More broadly, Israel (and Saudi Arabia, for that matter) help keep a nuclear Iran in check. Put simply, if the United States is a high school bully, then Israel is their discreet, loyal, vicious toady.
It will be difficult for Bennett to satisfy both his agenda and Biden, though Biden will undoubtedly use the example of Bennett’s delicate, multi-party patchwork to show to countries in crisis that political alterity and compromise work and are worth striving for. Whether he satisfies the U.S. or not, the right-wing millionaire is sure to make headlines in a malleable Israel and Levant.
