Third Jewish Commonwealth — Issue #3

Israel Elections 2026 Brief

Serious Analysis for a Decisive Election

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Issue #3 | May 2026

MAIN BRIEFING

Naftali Bennett and the Reconstruction of the Israeli Right

Will He Be the One — or Will He Not?

EDITOR’S NOTE

This week’s issue examines the political return of former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and the broader reconfiguration of Israel’s nationalist camp ahead of the 2026 elections.

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Naftali Bennett: The Unboxable Candidate

Once dismissed by many as politically finished after the collapse of the 2021–2022 coalition government, Bennett has reemerged as one of the central figures in Israel’s evolving post–October 7 political landscape.

Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has emerged as one of the two dominant figures of the anti-Netanyahu camp in the lead-up to Israel's 2026 elections — alongside former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot —the polling numbers reflect it. 

In several recent surveys, Bennett has ranked equal to or ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu on the question of the "most suitable for prime minister" measures. 

A February 2026 polling roundup concluded that Bennett had by then become "the clear alternative" to Netanyahu, consolidating opposition support more effectively than either Yair Lapid or Benny Gantz had managed.

A Lazar Research / Panel4 poll placed Bennett at 46% suitability, while a Jerusalem Post survey put Netanyahu at 41%. 

Even before merging with Lapid, Bennett's independent list — "Bennett 2026" — was polling between 20 and 23 Knesset seats, placing it as the largest or second-largest party in multiple surveys, neck-and-neck with Netanyahu’s Likud. 

One Times of Israel projection had put Likud at 25 seats and Bennett's list at 21. That is a remarkable figure for a politician who holds no Knesset seat and has been out of office since 2022.

A major recent development-  Bennett's merger with Yair Lapid Yesh Atid (“There is Future”) party into a new alliance named Together (Beyachad)- projected the Bennett-Lapid alliance at approximately 27 seats, with Likud trailing at 24 to 25. 

Still, the broader anti-Netanyahu bloc — which also includes Gadi Eisenkot's Yashar party, Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu, and Yair Golan's Democrats — cannot yet consistently cross the 61-seat threshold required to form a government. Some polls place the opposition at 58 to 60 seats, while Netanyahu's coalition remains highly competitive.

There is something politically unusual and not easily explained about Bennett.

Because Israeli politics is normally organized around recognizable tribes and fixed ideological identities; politicians are expected to fit familiar categories: secular or religious, nationalist or liberal, hawk or dove, establishment or outsider. Bennett consistently resists those boxes.

He is simultaneously a religious Zionist and a high-tech entrepreneur; a former elite commando and a global businessman; a nationalist who supported normalization with Arab states; a right-wing politician who formed a government with the Israeli center-left and an Arab Islamist party; a deeply Jewish public figure who speaks fluently in the language of technology, markets, and global innovation; and a politician identified with the settlement movement who presents himself as pragmatic rather than messianic.

Unlike most Israeli politicians, who emerge primarily from party machines or ideological movements, Bennett's biography moves through the army, the startup economy, and the religious Zionist community — and in each, he is taken seriously.

He served in elite IDF units. His security credentials are therefore not symbolic; they are foundational to how many Israelis perceive and trust him. After the army, he entered the technology sector, co-founded a tech-company, and sold it for a substantial sum. That success shaped his public image as competent, managerial, disciplined, and results-oriented — qualities that matter enormously in contemporary Israeli politics, where voters increasingly seek leaders who appear capable of running systems rather than merely winning ideological arguments.

Bennett comes from the religious Zionist world but is nothing like Haredi political culture. His identity is built on integration, not separation — military service, economic achievement, engagement with national institutions and global culture. That combination lets him speak across communities that rarely share a political home. Very few Israeli politicians can do that without losing credibility in all of them.

Hisrise was tied to a broader transformation within the Israeli right. 

For decades, that camp was dominated by Revisionist nationalism, Likud populism, or sectoral religious parties. 

Bennett represented something different: a technologically modern, highly educated, economically liberal, security-oriented nationalism. He projects competence more than charisma. 

He is not a mass orator in Netanyahu's mold — he does not dominate politics through theatrical communication or sweeping ideological narrative. His appeal lies in managerial seriousness and operational confidence.

His greatest political gamble — and the event that permanently transformed his identity — was the formation of the 2021 government. 

That coalition united right-wing parties, centrists, left-wing Zionist parties, and, historically, an Arab Islamist party, with the singular purpose of ending years of political paralysis by removing Netanyahu from power. 

The coalition was extraordinarily fragile and ideologically contradictory. Yet its very existence demonstrated something essential about Bennett: he was willing to cross traditional tribal boundaries in order to produce governability.

For supporters, this reflects courage, flexibility, and political maturity. For critics on the Israeli right, it represented betrayal. 

After October 7, Israeli politics changed dramatically. Security competence, institutional seriousness, and crisis management became the central political criteria. Bennett re-entered public discourse rapidly, through visible and sustained engagement with national security questions and wartime analysis. 

His tone differed noticeably from much of the surrounding political noise: less ideological, less theatrical, more operational, more strategic. For many Israelis exhausted by polarization, he increasingly appeared as a figure capable of bridging multiple camps without being consumed by any of them.

Bennett is seen by some as a nationalist, by others as a pragmatist. Others see a technocratic reformer, a national unity figure. 

Because his identity crosses categories, opponents struggle to reduce him to a single, damaging narrative. He is, politically speaking, difficult to simplify.

The core question surrounding Bennett is not whether he is intelligent, experienced, or capable. The real question is whether Israeli society in the post–October 7 era wants ideological certainty, or whether it is ready for a leadership style centered on national reconstruction and thus, strategic flexibility.

That is the political space Bennett is attempting to occupy. 

Whether Israel ultimately chooses that direction may determine not only his future, but the shape of Israel's next political era itself.

UPCOMING ANALYSES

• Can the opposition bloc actually win?

• Will opposition parties begin merging to avoid wasting mandates?

• What happens to the current coalition if it loses power?

• The future of Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Deri, and the Haredi parties outside government

• Is a post-Netanyahu split emerging inside the Likud itself?

• Can the Israeli right reconstruct itself after Netanyahu?