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Today on Tablet, Liel Leibovitz on Naftali Bennett

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January 14, 2013
Naftali Bennett, head of the Habayit Hayehudi Party, the Jewish Home party, sits in his car during a campaign tour on Dec. 26, 2012 in Tel Aviv, Israel.(Getty)
Naftali Bennett, head of the Habayit Hayehudi Party, the Jewish Home party, sits in his car during a campaign tour on Dec. 26, 2012 in Tel Aviv, Israel.(Getty)

Naftali Bennett, the leader of the Israeli party The Jewish Home, has been the biggest wildcard in a seemingly predetermined Israeli election season. But what does he really stand for? And what would he do with power? Today on Tablet, Liel Leibovitz investigates:

The chase began on Thursday night, Dec. 20, when Bennett, the young and charismatic head of Habayit Hayehudi—literally, the Jewish Home—a right-of-center religious party soaring in the polls, was interviewed by Nissim Mishal, one of Israel’s most revered television journalists. The veteran reporter wasted no time. He grilled Bennett, Netanyahu’s one-time chief of staff, about his allegedly strained relationship with his former boss. He called Bennett delusional for believing that it was possible for Israel to continue to object to the establishment of a Palestinian state in the face of mounting international pressure. For the first 15 minutes, they maintained a tense conversation, but nothing out of the ordinary for Israeli TV, where interviews are a contact sport and civility a sign of weakness. But Mishal had an ace up his sleeve.



At some point, his tone grew noticeably quieter. “You’re a major in reserve, right?” he asked Bennett, a former officer in one of the army’s elite units. Bennett confirmed that this was true. “If,” Mishal continued, “you were given an order to evacuate a [Jewish] outpost or settlement, what would you do?”

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