The telephone arrived in the armored car as the convoy was winding its way through the alleys of Hebron. On the line was Brig. Gen. Ofer Winter, the military secretary to Defense Minister Naftali Bennett. Winter provided and update that "the Palestinians in Gaza were evacuating their command centers." Bennett, who was sitting on my right in the heavy-duty jeep realized what that meant – as they had promised that morning, terrorists from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad would soon be launching rocket attacks on southern Israel.
Bennett didn't change his plans. We stopped at the Cave of the Patriarchs for a live Facebook feed.
"The greatest figures in of the Jewish nation lie in the building behind me," Bennett told his Facebook viewers and students from the hesder yeshiva in Kiryat Arba, with whom he'd met a few minutes earlier. During the feed, he picked up a handful of dirt and made a promise: "This is the earth of the Land of Israel. We won't give an inch of the Land of Israel to the Arabs."
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The feed ended. As he was rushing to pray inside the cave he asked his advisors how many people had been watching (as of Wednesday the number had reached some 40,000).
The reason for the visit was the inauguration of a new Jewish residential neighborhood in Kiryat Arba. The prime minister was also at the event, but both his and the defense minister's staffers took care that they would not be seen together. The official reason for the separation was security concerns, but one might think that each preferred to keep his distance, given their well-known political rivalry and the fraught election.
As it was getting dark and reports of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip began pouring in, we rushed to afternoon prayers. On the flight to Hebron, we passed over Gush Etzion and other settlements, and Bennett's thoughts turned to whether Israel would apply sovereignty there or not.
"Only if Yamina makes a strong show will we be able to guarantee sovereignty," he said. The Blackhawk helicopter flew home over the Judean hills and the coastal plain to constant updates about Red Alert sirens in the south.
We landed near Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer, outside Tel Aviv, and got into different armored cars. As the rocket barrages increased, the car's own sirens were turned on. We ran red lights and around traffic jams to make it to an urgent situation assessment at the IDF's Kirya headquarters in Tel Aviv, which the prime minister and heads of other branches of the security apparatus would also attend.
Everything had been calm when the day began at the Kirya. Bennett had spent Shabbat walking around to 21 different synagogues in Petah Tikva. At 8:30 Sunday morning, he had already attended the first situation assessment of the week. Winter, a close friend of Bennett's from their time in the elite Sayeret Matkal and Maglan IDF units, was in and out of the room.
The fact that they are both serving here now is a kind of closure, and many people tried to keep it from happening. Winter's promotion had been blocked by former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon and former Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, who did not like Winter's aggressive approach and wanted to get even with Winter for telling Bennett the truth about the IDF's lax conduct during Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014.
On any Sunday, especially the Sunday a week before the election, Bennett's advisors and aides have to adjust themselves to the pace. After his interview to Israel Hayom, Bennett met with Netanyahu and Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi on security matters. When it ended at noon, he launched a round of interviews to various TV and radio stations while en route to Jerusalem. Then there was the flight to Hebron and back, and then came 24 hours of violence from Gaza. He has barely seen the inside of Yamina's campaign headquarters.
The media began criticizing an incident in which the body of a terrorist was dragged across the Gaza border. Bennett, who when he was appointed defense minister issued orders for the military to do everything possible to avoid returning enemy bodies, backed up the IDF without hesitation.
"Enough with the Left's hypocritical criticism about a 'lack of humanity.' My gentle-spirited friends, you are not humane. Hamas is holding the bodies of Hadar and Doron [Lt. Hadar Goldin and Staff Sgt. Oron Shaul, who were killed in Operation Protective Edge]. I back the IDF, which killed the terrorists and collected the body. That is what needs to be done and that is what was done. We are being asked to be polite to the enemy. But the lives of Israeli civilians take precedence over the life of the enemy. Anyone who doesn't want to see that on TV should turn off the TV," he said.
Bennett also allowed himself to say what he'd been silent about for a long time – the funds Qatar supplies to Hamas.
"Look into how that policy came about and you'll find that former Defense Minister Lieberman was the one who met with the Qatari foreign minister in the summer of 2018 and asked for money for Hamas. The money for Hamas was his policy, and I inherited it. So he not only committed a security crime, he is also complaining about it. That's chutzpah, and it's time to tell the truth."
'Only if Yamina makes a strong show will we be able to guarantee sovereignty'
Until Israel and the terrorists in Gaza began trading blows earlier this week, Bennett had decent figures about a drastic drop in the number of arson balloons floated over the border fence; a cessation to nighttime provocations on the border fence; and even fewer Red Alert sirens. But then yet another domino was toppled – a terrorist placed a bomb and was killed by Israeli troops. An IDF bulldozer dragged the body away, the terrorists opened fire, the IDF responded, the terrorists fired again, the IDF once again launched airstrikes – this time, targets included the Palestinian Islamic Jihad command center in Damascus. And on and on it went until it ended Monday night.
The truth is that this isn't how Bennett intended to handle the ceaseless problem of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. Shortly after this week's flare-up began, he had explained that he did not want a "two-day escalation once a month."
"I would prefer one longer event, with all the costs that would entail, to endless 'rounds.' We hear what the residents [of the south] are saying. Only last week I spent a night in Kfar Azza and what they told me there, and other places, was 'Do what you need to, no matter how long it takes, but put a stop to this routine of Red Alerts every few days or weeks.' Insofar as I can prevent that, I will – even if it means being criticized. That is how I'm implementing my vision as defense minister," he said.
But hope is one thing - reality is another. Even as we were talking, the incident on the Gaza border was unfolding, and things began happening quickly. Bennett, despite everything, is sticking to his guns and promising that after the election he and Kochavi, having consulted with the prime minster, have a surprise ready for Hamas.
We spoke again on Tuesday. "This round taught me that we will find ourselves in a wide-scale operation in Gaza in the near future. It's inevitable. The only way to change the situation on the ground is by rebooting it as soon as possible. I oppose these 'flare-ups,' but this time we have raised the bar. We killed eight terrorists and I made a new rule: if the Gaza vicinity communities can't have peace and quiet, neither will Damascus."
Q: And what about the long-term?
"There is a plan. It's creative and different from what we've already seen. There was a reason the prime minister said what he did about 'surprises,' and he said it intentionally, so they would know."
Bennett has wanted to be defense minister for years. A large part of why he entered politics was to completely overhaul the defense system that is responsible for our existence after experiencing the system's weaknesses first-hand as an officer during the 2006 Second Lebanon War. In closed-door talks, in cabinet meeting, and in speeches Bennett has criticized the rigidity and hesitation he sees in it.
"The nation's leaders' fixated thinking is the root of the problems… We need to move to a new defense outlook - no more fixation and treading water, but victory. No more 50-day wars that end in a draw. We need to move on from fixated thinking to innovative initiative," he told the Institute for National Security Studies.
Q: Do you still think the IDF suffers from fixated thinking?
"We have the privilege of a chief of staff who takes initiative and is aggressive, who is spearheading a completely different attitude toward battle. It's true that when I was in the cabinet during Operation Protective Edge, I saw a military leadership that was hesitant, that didn't know how to make decisions and was on the defensive. I had to push the IDF to take vital action to destroy Hamas' tunnels. Today, we have a great military leadership and I trust the chief of staff. There is a good spirit in the IDF now, a spirit of cunning, and I'm pleased with that."
Q: If we're talking about Protective Edge, did then-chief of staff Benny Gantz err by not allowing Golani forces to destroy the Hamas command center at Shifa Hospital, for humanitarian reasons?
"Yes. He made a mistake by not giving orders to attack the terrorists."
Even though Bennett has only been in the role a short while and in a transition government, no less, he has made policy changes that can easily be seen. When it comes to Judea and Samaria, Bennett took steps others had avoided for years. He announced a plan to stop Palestinian-European expansion in Area C; applied sanctions to the Palestinian Authority for its boycott on Israeli beef; issued a permit for the construction of a new neighborhood in the Jewish community in Hebron; and this week announced progress in disabled access to the Cave of the Patriarchs, and also released an administrative detainee against the advice of the Shin Bet security agency.
"I respect those who are under me, but ministers aren't a rubber stamp. If all ministers do is approve what's put in front of them, we don't need them. That's how I acted in my previous ministerial positions and that's what I'm doing here. When it comes down to it, we were elected to implement policies."
Things are also starting to turn around when it comes to Iran, also little has been made public. The strikes in Syria attributed to Israel are racking up Iranian casualties. They appear to be targeting bases as well as weapons convoys. Here, too, Bennett and Kochavi have similar worldviews, which makes it easier for them to work together.
"We're make deep-seated changes to defense policy, and I hope that in the next few years I'll be able to complete the big steps needed to move from defense to offense. In everything having to do with Iran, we've been fighting the arms of the octopus like Hezbollah and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Now we are aiming at its head. We've established the Iran command and we'll turn Syria into the Iranians' Vietnam. We won't face off with them on the Golan Heights alone – our goal is to intensify the attacks on Iranian fighters deep inside Syria, making [Syria] mud in which Iran will drown."
Q: Does Prime Minister Netanyahu support you? Because he has said publicly that he appointed you to keep you from joining Gantz.
"I see my responsibility as defense minister as sacred. I send IDF soldiers into enemy territory and on operations. I'm not willing to bring politics into any aspect of our activity. In the defense and security forum, we work together in harmony. Unlike what he does elsewhere, here he gives me his full support. I give him constant updates on operations and actions, and everything I was told about how he would go around me, etc., was baseless."
Q: Why are you sticking with him? He's done terrible things to your closest associates.
"I won't give our opponents the prize of seeing the defense minister and the prime minister go at each other. That would be a great day for the Joint Arab List. All my efforts are going toward expanding the [right-wing] bloc. Netanyahu needs a large Yamina alongside him. He is the one who told US presidents that his coalitions were preventing him from taking the steps they wanted him to, like freeing terrorists. Netanyahu needs a strong Bennett at his side, and he knows it. It's not pleasant to be on the receiving end of these attacks by Netanyahu but I'm not responsible for his actions – only for my own. The [electoral] division should be such that Likud supporters vote for Likud and those who support the ideological right and religious Zionism vote for Yamina. I am not going to target anyone within the right-wing camp. The 11th commandment says a rightist does not turn on another rightist – Netanyahu taught me that."
Q: So you don't care about the election results, you'll only join a government under Netanyahu?
"Right. We're only going to go with Netanyahu. We won't join a Gantz government, not in any scenario. I'd rather sit in the opposition than join a government led by Benny Gantz. I would also sooner face a fourth election than sit in his cabinet. I'm right-wing and Blue and White is a left-wing party. An avocado has a pit and a peel – at the heart of Blue and White you have Yesh Atid. They wants to evict tens of thousands of settlers from their homes, and their leader Yair Lapid, who is anti-religious, has said in the past that the [2005] disengagement [from the Gaza Strip] was punishment for the religious-national public. I don't share these opinions and therefore I will not sit [in a government] with them.
"A Netanyahu government is the only one I'll join, and we're more loyal to Netanyahu than some of the people in Likud. In the days that remain before the election, the right division of labor is for Netanyahu to bring up voter turnout in Likud strongholds and for us to do the same among religious Zionists and right-wing strongholds. The right-wing bloc has 57-58 seats, so victory is within reach. Another push and we'll have a right-wing government."
The year of three elections was strange for most Israelis, and especially bizarre for Bennett. He began it with an electoral bungee jump when he established the New Right, but the bungee snapped and Bennett crashed and burned. In an incredible turn of events, he went from a political zero to the second-most important position in the country. When asked how he can explain such a turn of events, he points upward and says, "God only knows."
He is keeping most of what he has learned since April 2019 to himself, but says that while he was out of the Knesset, he didn't break.
"I accepted things and did things I'd been planning to but hadn't had time for."
'Netanyahu needs a strong Bennett at his side'
This included reading the Books of Samuel twice to take inspiration from King David, who was persecuted by his predecessor King Saul and whose life was full of ups and downs.
Bennett is well aware of the heavy public price he is still paying for his missteps, but he takes responsibility for them, uncommon as that might be in politics. It's clear to him that he made mistakes, but he feels that the various sectors of religious Zionism are working together better now than in the previous line-up.
"Frustration is not a work plan and politics isn't a history lesson. The move of establishing the New Right was designed to expand the bloc, but failed. Now we need to look ahead. I am taking the lead in uniting everyone and maintaining unity. We'll hold a special faction meeting the day after the election, but until then, fieldwork is the name of the game. Yamina is the only party that opposes handing over any territory in the Land of Israel and the only that that totally opposes a Palestinian state. A vote for [Oztma Yehudit leader] Itamar Ben-Gvir is a waste. We mustn't miss this opportunity."
Q: Can you accept that the prime minister will be running the country when he is under indictment?
"Obviously, that's not a pleasant situation, but the law is clear. I see the prime minister now. We're holding marathon meetings on security, and he's functioning well."
Q: Immediately after the election, the High Court is slated to discuss the question of whether someone who is under indictment can be charged with forming a government. What do you think?
"It would be irresponsible if the High Court justices were to disqualify him [Netanyahu]. The public knows the details and sees the picture when it comes to Netanyahu and will express its opinion at the polls. If he is disqualified, that means the High Court is telling the people that it doesn't listen to them. It would be destructive to the public's faith. They mustn't do that."
Q: One last question. Since you were appointed, your colleague Yoav Gallant hasn't stopped criticizing you. Do you want to respond?
"Gallant? He'll be bitter forever."
