Naftali Bennett, the far-right chameleon seeking to replace Netanyahu

In Naftali Bennett’s office, at the heart of Ra’anana’s high-tech district near Tel Aviv, there’s a small table that says it all. Beside the small blue-and-white Israeli flag, figurines of David Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and Theodor Herzl replace the rabbi’s portrait or settler movement symbols one might have expected from this figure of religious Zionism. The message is clear: “Bennett has completed his journey into Israel’s political mainstream, and he wants voters to notice,” journalists from the Times of Israel summarize, who noticed these details during a lengthy interview at his office on June 11. The former prime minister now emphasizes “the language of mainstream Israeli statehood: the first prime minister, the founding ideologue, the declaration of independence, civic equality, liberal democracy, and national institutions,” they...