Ex-PM Bennett: Israel’s political leaders and security chiefs have to go

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett tells a conference that Israel’s political and military leadership must be replaced.

“We need change. The leadership is not good — it does not have good values,” Bennett tells the Israel Hayom newspaper conference in Herzliya. “The leadership often puts personal interests ahead of the good of the state, or the good of a sector above the good of the state,” he says.

Apparently referring to public comments by coalition members, he adds, “Or it insistently ignores the rest of the world and declares, ‘We’ll bomb here’ or ‘We’ll drop an atom bomb on Gaza.’ It’s childish and irresponsible behavior.”

“It will happen in the State of Israel,” Bennett goes on. “I have come to the conclusion that it must be done. The leadership must be changed… the political leadership and, honestly, the security leadership too.”

“These are people I love but they too have to be changed,” he says to applause.

In an interview published earlier today by The New York Times, Bennett made similar remarks, stating, “All the senior leadership of Israel, political and military, needs to be replaced.”

His interviewer, columnist Bret Stephens, wrote that Bennett left him “with little doubt that he’s on the verge of getting back in [to Israeli politics], with the aim of toppling the ruling coalition through parliamentary maneuvers this year and going for elections.”