Naftali Bennett

In May 2025, Kan reported that 35,000 shekels paid by Bennett to Itamar Ben-Gvir under a settlement agreement might have been intended to buy his silence over compromising personal information. The payment and settlement are documented; the description as "hush money" is a media allegation.

Attribution

Personally implicated

The use of Bennett's private home in Ra’anana as the Prime Minister's effective residence incurred significant security and refurbishment costs, as well as complaints from neighbours, fuelling controversy over the use of public funds.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Personally implicated

During the campaign, Bennett had made several pledges ruling out certain government arrangements with Yair Lapid and the left. Nevertheless, in June 2021 he formed a highly diverse coalition with Lapid, including Ra’am, and became Prime Minister despite Yamina's small number of seats.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Political responsibility

In 2015, Bennett initially ordered that the NGO Breaking the Silence should not be allowed to speak in secondary schools, then supported a law adopted in 2018 allowing the Education Minister to exclude organisations considered to undermine the state or the military.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Political responsibility

As Education Minister and chairman of the Council for Higher Education, Bennett supported a proposed code of ethics restricting lecturers' political expression and calls for academic boycotts. University presidents and hundreds of academics viewed it as a threat to academic freedom.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Political responsibility

The Education Ministry refused to include Dorit Rabinyan's novel about a romantic relationship between a Jewish Israeli woman and a Palestinian man in the general curriculum. The decision prompted accusations of censorship and fear of assimilation; Bennett, as Education Minister, publicly supported the refusal.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Political responsibility

In 2015, Israeli journalists revisited the role of the young officer Bennett in an operational sequence preceding the Israeli bombardment of the UN compound at Qana in 1996, in which more than one hundred civilians were killed. Some accounts criticised him for changing his plan or requesting fire under urgent circumstances.

Attribution

Personally implicated

Before and after entering government, Bennett promoted a plan providing for Israeli annexation of much of Area C of the West Bank and rejected the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state under the conventional parameters of a two-state solution.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Personally implicated

During a debate on the release of Palestinian prisoners, Bennett was quoted as saying that if terrorists are captured, they should simply be killed, and that he had already killed many Arabs in his life. The remarks prompted accusations of incitement and generalisation against Arabs.

State of the evidence

Documented

Attribution

Personally implicated