Naftali Bennett

Naftali Bennett (Hebrew: נַפְתָּלִי בֶּנֶט; born 25 March 1972) is an Israeli politician, businessman, and soldier who served as the prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022, and as the alternate prime minister from July to November 2022. Bennett has served as the head of Bennett 2026 since 2025; the party is allied with Yesh Atid as part of an alliance called Together. Bennett was the leader of the New Right party from 2018 to 2022, having previously led the religious Zionist and far-right political party The Jewish Home between 2012 and 2018.

The son of immigrants from the United States, Bennett was born and raised in Haifa. Bennett served in the Sayeret Matkal and Maglan special forces units of the Israel Defense Forces, commanding many combat operations, and subsequently became a software entrepreneur. In 1999, he co-founded and co-owned the US company Cyota. The company was sold in 2005 for $145 million. He was also CEO of Soluto, an Israeli cloud computing service, that sold in 2013 for a reported $100–130 million.

Bennett entered politics in 2006 as Chief of Staff for Benjamin Netanyahu until 2008. From 2010 to 2012, he was the director of the Yesha Council. In 2011, together with Ayelet Shaked, he co-founded the My Israel extra-parliamentary movement. In 2012, Bennett was elected as the party leader of The Jewish Home. In the 2013 Knesset election, the first contested by The Jewish Home under Bennett's leadership, the party won 12 seats in the Knesset. He served under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Minister of Economy and Religious Services from 2013 to 2015, before being appointed Minister of Education in 2015. In December 2018, Bennett left The Jewish Home to form the New Right party. After he lost his Knesset seat in the April 2019 Knesset election, he was dismissed by Netanyahu as Education Minister in June 2019. He regained his seat in the September 2019 Knesset election, representing the New Right (now a member of the Yamina alliance), and was appointed Minister of Defense, before leaving the position the following year.