Former Israeli Prime Minister Emerges as Wildcard in High-Stakes Election Shaping Middle East’s Future

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett is positioning himself for a political comeback built around an expansive vision for the Middle East. His agenda includes widening the Abraham Accords, deepening economic ties with Arab countries and repairing Israel’s increasingly strained relationship with the United States.

Bennett’s connection to America is both personal and strategic. His parents moved to Israel from San Francisco, and the 54-year-old former technology entrepreneur has become a familiar presence on American television. He believes his business experience could help him work with President Donald Trump to push regional diplomacy forward.

“He was a businessman, not a career politician, same as me,” Bennett told The Times of Israel in June, referring to Trump. “His worldview is, let’s get stuff done. Let’s look at results, not process. And that’s precisely my view.”

Bennett said he would make regional economic cooperation a central tool of his foreign policy and seek new agreements modeled on the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords. His goals may overlap with Trump’s Middle East strategy, but the president endorsed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for reelection on Oct. 18.

At home, Bennett is confronting an unusual political hurdle. His joint Beyachad, or Together, party with former Prime Minister Yair Lapid is trailing both Netanyahu’s Likud and the Yashar party led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot.

A Channel 12 survey released Oct. 23 projected that Eisenkot’s party would win 23 Knesset seats, followed by Netanyahu with 21 and Bennett and Lapid with 15.

Still, Bennett understands that winning the most seats is not the only route to the prime minister’s office in Israel. In 2021, his Yamina party secured just seven of the Knesset’s 120 seats, yet coalition negotiations enabled him to become prime minister and underscored the influence of parliamentary dealmaking.

How a seven-seat leader became prime minister

Born in Haifa to American immigrants, Bennett served in Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal and Maglan military units. He later co-founded the cybersecurity firm Cyota, which was sold for $145 million in 2005.

Bennett began his political career as Netanyahu’s chief of staff. He went on to lead the Yesha Council, which represents West Bank settlements, and held the posts of economy, education and defense minister.

A religious Zionist and longtime opponent of Palestinian statehood, Bennett upended Israel’s political establishment in 2021 by assembling a coalition that brought together right-wing, centrist, left-wing and Arab parties. The alliance ended Netanyahu’s 12-year run in power.

That coalition disintegrated in 2022, and many former supporters accused Bennett of abandoning the promises that had helped him win their backing.

Einat Halevy Levin, a strategic adviser who has known Bennett for years, said he used his time out of office to prepare for another chance at leadership.

“In 2021, he wasn’t prepared. He hadn’t built a governing party; he had built another election campaign,” Halevy Levin told News Outlet.

She said she met with Bennett at his home in November 2023, after the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, when he had already decided to return to politics.

This time, Halevy Levin said, Bennett devoted years to constructing a political organization, vetting candidates and creating the infrastructure required to run a government.

“I’ve known him since he was economy minister. He was always daring and full of creative ideas, but was more inclined to stick to his own views,” she said. “He has undergone a transformation.”

A new Middle East vision meets old divisions

Bennett’s regional ambitions reflect an approach to diplomacy shaped by his business experience, according to Halevy Levin.

She recalled attending a meeting with a senior official from a neighboring country who appeared astonished by Bennett’s detailed knowledge of its economy and priorities.

“He wasn’t looking at the country through a military lens,” she said, describing Bennett’s focus on identifying shared economic interests rather than approaching every regional relationship primarily as a security challenge.

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In an interview with Israel’s Channel 13 on Sunday, two days before the election, Bennett pointed to his meetings as prime minister with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed as examples of the diplomacy he hopes to revive.

He argued that Israel needs to present a new vision of a Middle Eastern renaissance and identified extremist settler violence in the West Bank as a major source of damage to its international standing.

“We need to eliminate Jewish terrorism in Judea and Samaria, and I say this precisely as a supporter of the settlement movement,” Bennett said. “They do not represent the overwhelming majority of settlers, but right now this is the problem causing us the greatest damage internationally.”

Bennett said he would direct Israel’s senior police, military and intelligence officials to produce a plan within three days to crack down on extremist violence.

His foreign policy, however, remains firmly on the Israeli right.

On Iran, Bennett has promoted his “Octopus Doctrine,” advocating direct action against Tehran rather than focusing exclusively on Iranian-backed groups.

“If Hezbollah fires at us, we strike Iran,” he declared at an Aug. 19 policy conference.

On Gaza, Bennett opposes Palestinian statehood and supports maintaining Israeli security control until Hamas is disarmed. He has also proposed excluding Qatar and Turkey from Gaza’s future arrangements while involving Egypt.

Those positions raise questions about how significantly his government would depart from Netanyahu’s policies.

Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies and former head of the Iran branch in Israeli military intelligence, argued that restoring Israel’s diplomatic standing requires more than a change in leadership.

“If Bennett thinks he can support annexing E1 (an area east of Jerusalem where planned Israeli settlement construction could further fragment the West Bank), oppose a Palestinian state, continue the occupation of Gaza and simultaneously meet with Sisi and Abdullah and attract investment to Israel, he simply doesn’t understand the depth of the international crisis,” Citrinowicz said.

Citrinowicz argued that without a fundamental change in Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, replacing Netanyahu would not be sufficient to restore the country’s international standing.

His warning comes amid changing American public attitudes toward Israel. A February 2026 Gallup survey found 36% of Americans sympathized more with Israelis, compared with 41% who sympathized more with Palestinians, a statistically insignificant five-point difference but a significant shift from the longstanding pro-Israel advantage.

A comeback built on lessons from 2021

Beyond foreign policy, Bennett is promising a sweeping domestic overhaul.

In an October 25 manifesto, he pledged to redirect 30 billion shekels in government benefits toward families who work and serve in the military, reduce food prices by 30%, establish a state commission of inquiry into Oct. 7 and introduce an eight-year term limit for prime ministers.

His alliance with Lapid gives him an established political organization, but he faces competition from Eisenkot and continuing attacks from Netanyahu, who has warned that a future opposition coalition could depend on left-wing and Arab parties.

With Israel’s fragmented parliamentary system requiring at least 61 seats to govern, coalition negotiations could prove as consequential as the election results themselves.

Bennett has already demonstrated that political reality once.

Now, four years after his first government collapsed, he is seeking to convince Israelis that the unconventional politician who became prime minister with seven seats has returned better prepared — and with a vision that could reshape Israel’s place in the Middle East.