Can Bennett shake Israel's national-religious old guard into a modern new party?
Like Lieberman and Lapid, Bennett's goal is to become prime minister. And he believes that to conquer this peak, he must be freed of the rusty chains and the religious, party-hack image of his rabbis and teachers.
By Yossi Verter | Sep. 10, 2014 | 5:13 PM
When Bennett appears today before the archaic, sleepy party organ still known as the National Religious Party Central Committee, he’ll need all the personal charm that made him an overnight political star to persuade its members that they have no alternative to him. He has to sell them on the idea that without him, it’s doubtful the NRP, in its incarnation as Habayit Hayehudi, would still even exist, and it’s yet more doubtful that its representatives would now be occupying key posts in the cabinet, Knesset and other government agencies.
About this, Bennett is right. His whirlwind entry into the post of party chairman two years ago breathed new life and brought new blood into an atrophied organ whose electorate was steadily declining. Fifteen Knesset seats soon followed, and with them, power and influence.
But sometimes, food simply whets the appetite. “Everyone wants to be the director general, the secretary-general, the police commissioner,” Arik Einstein once sang. In politics, everyone wants to be Avigdor Lieberman and Yair Lapid: modern-day dictators, sole rulers of their parties, whose word is instantly obeyed and who oust any dissenters. But unlike Lieberman and Lapid, who set up brand-new parties in their own image, Bennett took over an existing party with a distinguished past, one that operates under antiquated bylaws that don’t recognize comets like him.
This is the reality Bennett is seeking to change today. Like Lieberman and Lapid, he has set himself a goal: becoming prime minister. And he believes that to conquer this peak, he must be freed of the rusty chains and the religious, party-hack image of his rabbis and teachers and adopt the habits of a modern leader. Someone who is new, strong and innovative, who has broad powers, and who is capable of connecting with large segments of the public rather than only with religious Zionists and settlers, whose electoral wingspan is fairly limited.
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