At a press conference in Ofakim on Tuesday, Yamina leader Naftali Bennett said the agreement between the state and its citizens had been broken. He argued that the previous government had ruined many state systems beyond repair, saying they need to be “dismantled and reassembled,” and insisted the next government must be a “constituent government,” a “Ben-Gurion-style government.” Bennett said that during the two years he was out of politics he and his team worked with top Israeli professionals on a plan to fix what he called Israel’s deepest structural problems.
Bennett presented the core of his program, which he calls a “new contract.” In education, he said children should get a public education at the level of a private school, noting that the state already spends about NIS 50,000 per child on average. He said small repairs to the Education Ministry would not be enough, and that the old system must be closed and rebuilt. “We will close the Education Ministry of 1948 and open an Education Ministry of 2026,” he said, promising to cut bureaucracy, eliminate unnecessary mechanisms and redirect money to children, classrooms and teachers. He also attacked the ultra-Orthodox system, saying, “We will dismantle the state of the ultra-Orthodox that was built inside the state,” and said there would be one education system for all Israeli children.
On the economy, Bennett said he intends to wage an all-out war on food cartels. He claimed foreign actors had entered the food market because there is no competition, and specifically accused Chinese-owned Bright Food, which bought Tnuva, of ordering price hikes. He promised to break up food conglomerates and lower prices if elected to the Knesset, saying he answers only to the Israeli public. “On my first day in office, the party is over,” he said, naming Tnuva, Shufersal, Unilever and Diplomat.
Bennett also said his party would remove the “TikTok ministers” if it leads the next government. He said he remains in close contact with Gadi Eisenkot and expects they will work well together. On the issue of a Palestinian consulate in East Jerusalem, he said he inherited a mistake from Benjamin Netanyahu, who had allegedly promised Joe Biden to establish one. Bennett said he told Biden that Jerusalem is only Israel’s capital, but would not turn the matter into a political fight, adding that the issue “faded away.”
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