Naftali Bennett

The central question around Naftali Bennett is no longer whether he will return to the arena, but how the public judges his return. In 2021 the high-tech entrepreneur turned politician assembled the broad rotation government, stretching from the right to Ra'am, that replaced the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and served first as its prime minister; the standing of a former prime minister gives him a solid base, but his critics on the right still bring up Ra'am's inclusion in the coalition. After years outside the Knesset he founded Bennett 2026 in 2025, and in April 2026 he joined Yair Lapid's Yesh Atid in a joint list called Together, which he leads into the October 27 election. His roots in religious Zionism, alongside a pragmatic record of coalition-building, give him appeal to different audiences, but the merger with Lapid sharpens the dilemma: it widens his base toward the center while exposing him to the charge that he has drifted away from right-wing voters. The rise of Gadi Eisenkot, whose Yashar! party is ahead of Together in recent polls, has undermined Bennett's position as the leader of the anti-Netanyahu camp. The election itself will be the clearest test: whether the public sees him as a pragmatic right-wing alternative to the current government, or as someone whose standing rests mainly on his previous term in office.