Israel’s 13th prime minister, Bennett was born in Haifa to U.S. immigrants. He was an IDF Sayeret Matkal commando and a software entrepreneur. He became the leader of the settler-supported Jewish Home party in 2012 and was first elected to the Knesset in 2013. As the Yamina leader, he became the prime minister in 2021 in Israel’s most diverse governing coalition under a plan to rotate after two years with Yair Lapid. When that government fell after a year, he chose to sit out the fall 2022 election. Bennett opposes a two-state solution with the Palestinians and advocates applying Israeli sovereignty to those areas of the West Bank under Israeli control.
