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Hours before the second Democratic debate was set to begin, Ifeoma Ike, the former senior adviser for Dianne Morales’s campaign, announced that she had joined Maya Wiley’s team in the same capacity.“Much love to my former team fighting for all the right things,” read her tweet announcing the change. “20 days left.” She elaborated on her decision in a blog post for The Grio.Ms. Ike and Whitney Hu, Ms. Morales’s campaign manager, resigned last week following a storm of accusations of staff misconduct, discrimination and an unhealthy work environment. The exits were a protest against what they considered the candidate’s mishandling of personnel issues.“I’m proud of the work I’ve done,” wrote Ms. Ike in a tweet last week. “I’m proud of the work we’ve done. I am formally resigning from the campaign as it no longer aligns with my values.”The sudden resignations of the two senior staffers left the Morales staff in chaos. Remaining aides launched a unionization effort for the final weeks of the campaign. But soon after, four employees, all involved in the unionization efforts, were terminated without a clear explanation. The employees who are left have staged a walkout until those staff members are reinstated.Left-leaning voters may find themselves choosing between Ms. Morales and Ms. Wiley on the ballot. In recent months, Ms. Wiley has said that she would rank Ms. Morales second under the city’s ranked-choice voting system, which enables voters to select five candidates in order of preference. After news of the staff implosion, Ms. Wiley declined to say if that was still the case. More

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving leader, is on the verge of losing power as his opponents strike a deal that would replace him with an ultranationalist, Naftali Bennett.JERUSALEM — Israeli opposition parties announced on Wednesday that they had reached a coalition agreement to form a government and oust Benjamin Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israeli history and a dominant figure who has pushed his nation’s politics to the right.The announcement could lead to the easing of a political impasse that has produced four elections in two years and left Israel without a stable government or a state budget. If Parliament ratifies the fragile agreement in a confidence vote in the coming days, it will also bring down the curtain, if only for an intermission, on the premiership of a leader who has defined contemporary Israel more than any other.The new coalition is an unusual and awkward alliance between eight political parties from a diverse array of ideologies, from the left to the far right. While some analysts have hailed it as a reflection of the breadth and complexity of contemporary society, others say its members are too incompatible for their compact to last, and consider it the embodiment of Israel’s political dysfunction.The alliance would be led until 2023 by Naftali Bennett, a former settler leader and standard-bearer for religious nationalists, who opposes a Palestinian state and wants Israel to annex the majority of the occupied West Bank. He is a former ally of Mr. Netanyahu often described as more right wing than the prime minister.If the government lasts a whole term, it would then be led between 2023 and 2025 by Yair Lapid, a centrist former television host considered a standard-bearer for secular Israelis.It was Mr. Lapid who was picked by the president, Reuven Rivlin, four weeks ago to try to form a new government. And it was Mr. Lapid who called Mr. Rivlin at 11:22 p.m. on Wednesday night, with just 38 minutes left before his mandate expired, to inform him that he had assembled a fragile coalition.Mr. Lapid, the Yesh Atid Party leader, speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, last month.Amir Levy/Getty Images“I commit to you, Mr. President, that this government will work to serve all the citizens of Israel, including those who aren’t members of it, will respect those who oppose it, and do everything in its power to unite all parts of Israeli society,” Mr. Lapid said, according to a readout provided by his office.Mr. Bennett, 49, is the son of American immigrants, and a former software entrepreneur, army commando and chief of staff to Mr. Netanyahu. His home is in central Israel, but he was once chief executive of an umbrella group, the Yesha Council, that represents Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. Until the most recent election cycle, Mr. Bennett was part of a political alliance with Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right leader.Though Mr. Bennett’s party, Yamina, won just seven of the 120 seats in Parliament, Mr. Netanyahu could not be ousted without his support, allowing him to set the terms of his involvement in the coalition.Mr. Lapid, 57, is a former news anchor and journalist who became a politician nine years ago and later served as finance minister in a Netanyahu-led coalition. His party placed second in the general election in March, winning 17 seats. But Mr. Lapid considered the ouster of Mr. Netanyahu more important than demanding to go first as prime minister.To avoid exacerbating their differences, Mr. Lapid and Mr. Bennett have promised to focus on largely technocratic issues like the economy and infrastructure, and to stay away from more contentious topics such as trying to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.Mr. Bennett, left, speaking with Mr. Lapid during a special session of the Knesset.Pool photo by Ronen ZvulunBut some commentators say Mr. Bennett’s party will be under pressure to prove to their supporters that their right-wing instincts have not been dimmed by their coalition partners.In a harbinger of potential tensions to come, talks almost collapsed on Wednesday after a disagreement over whether a key lieutenant to Mr. Bennett, Ayelet Shaked, a proponent of major judicial reform, would be allowed to join a committee that appoints new judges.And some leftist and centrist ministers are expected to rile their right-wing partners by promoting police reform or advocating curbs on settlement expansion.The alliance will also include an Arab Islamist party, Raam, which would become the first independent Arab group to join a governing political alliance in Israeli history. The agreement “secures the position of the Arab parties as an influential and legitimate player in the political arena,” the party said in a statement.But its participation is also expected to become a point of friction. Mr. Bennett briefly pulled out of coalition talks during the recent war in Gaza, wary of participating in an alliance with a party run by Palestinian citizens of Israel.Mr. Bennett speaking with reporters  on Sunday.Pool photo by Yonatan SindelRaam joined the coalition on the promise of greater rights and resources for Israel’s Arab minority — but some of its demands, including the repeal of a controversial housing law that disproportionately hinders the Arab minority, are deemed unacceptable to some of the coalition’s hard-right members.In the meantime, Mr. Netanyahu, who remains caretaker prime minister, is doing all he can to upend the agreement. The speaker of the Israeli Parliament, Yariv Levin, is a member of Mr. Netanyahu’s party, Likud, and can use parliamentary procedure to delay the confidence vote until Monday, June 14, constitutional experts said.In that time, his party has promised to pile pressure on right-wing members of the alliance to jump ship, telling them that they have sold out by aligning themselves with leftist and Arab lawmakers.If Mr. Netanyahu fails to persuade enough opponents, it will spell the end — at least for now — of his run at the pinnacle of Israeli politics, the longest tenure of any Israeli prime minister. Either way, he leaves a lasting imprint on Israeli life, and will likely seek to retain significant influence as leader of the opposition.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving at the Knesset on Sunday.Pool photo by Yonatan SindelThe presence of Mr. Bennett at the threshold of power is testament to how Mr. Netanyahu has helped shift the pendulum of Israeli politics firmly to the right..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times 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a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Under Mr. Netanyahu’s watch, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process collapsed, and tensions between Jews and Arabs inside Israel peaked in May when unrest swept across mixed Jewish-Arab cities during the latest Gaza war.By forging an electoral pact between far-right parties, which later helped them win elected office, Mr. Netanyahu also helped accelerate the impact of the far right on Israeli society and media debates.Against this backdrop, he nevertheless defied expectations and convention by negotiating diplomatic agreements with four Arab countries, subverting assumptions that Israel could make peace with Middle Eastern states only once a final deal with the Palestinians had been made.Israeli right-wing supporters  demonstrated against the formation of new government on Sunday.Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressHe fostered a strong bond with former President Donald J. Trump, who gave Israel several diplomatic victories, shifting the American Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, shuttering an American consulate that dealt with Palestinian issues, closing the Palestinian mission in Washington and ripping up an Obama-era deal with Iran.The recent impasse in Israeli politics is also a result of Mr. Netanyahu’s divisive decision to remain in office despite being on trial for corruption.By doing so, his critics argued, he undermined democratic norms, and by attacking the judges in his case, he risked undercutting the rule of law.Mr. Netanyahu denied the charges, and said he had the right to remain in office to defend himself against what he presented as a backdoor coup attempt.But many even in his own base disagreed, leading to a political deadlock in which Mr. Netanyahu retained just enough support to remain in power but not enough to form a stable government — leading to the four inconclusive elections in the past two years, most recently in March.A desire to avoid a fifth election was what ultimately prompted Mr. Bennett to abandon Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing camp and ally with rivals who, like Mr. Lapid, do not share most of his long-term political vision.If Parliament confirms his government, Mr. Bennett will start his term just as a new president, Isaac Herzog, begins his. Mr. Herzog, a former leader of the centrist Labor party, was elected president by lawmakers on Wednesday. He will assume office in July, and perform the largely ceremonial role for the next seven years. Isaac Herzog with Yariv Levin, speaker of the Knesset.Pool photo by Ronen ZvulunMr. Bennett’s government, if it passes the confidence vote in Parliament, may fall far earlier.Should it collapse, some analysts believe Mr. Lapid may emerge with more credit than Mr. Bennett. While Mr. Bennett gets the first go at the premiership, his decision to work with centrists and leftists has angered his already small following.“Lapid has made a very strong set of decisions, conveyed an amazing level of maturity and really made a big statement about a different kind of leadership,” said Dahlia Scheindlin, an Israeli political analyst and pollster at the Century Foundation, a New York-based research group. “That will not be lost on the Israeli public.”Adam Rasgon, Isabel Kershner, Gabby Sobelman and Carol Sutherland contributed reporting. More

Robert S. Mueller III will teach a course at the University of Virginia’s law school intended to take students inside his investigation that concluded Russia had interfered in the 2016 election to help Donald J. Trump, the university announced on Wednesday.The course, called “The Mueller Report and the Role of the Special Counsel,” will be taught by Mr. Mueller alongside three former federal prosecutors: James L. Quarles III, Andrew D. Goldstein and Aaron Zebley, who was Mr. Mueller’s deputy. Mr. Mueller recruited the three men to work on the investigation, which spanned two years of the Trump administration.Mr. Mueller will lead at least one of six in-person classes and said that he hoped to bring in other top prosecutors as guest speakers, according to the university.The course will cover the investigation chronologically, from the hiring of Mr. Mueller as special counsel in 2017 until the inquiry’s conclusion in 2019. The instructors also intend to explain the challenges that prosecutors faced and “the legal and practical context” behind critical decisions, the university said.The final class is expected to focus on obstruction of justice and the role of special counsels in presidential accountability. The Mueller report detailed actions by Mr. Trump that many legal experts said were sufficient to ask a grand jury to indict him on charges of obstruction of justice, but Attorney General William P. Barr cleared him of obstruction soon after the report was completed.The announcement of the course is likely to revive curiosity around the Russian inquiry, which Mr. Trump repeatedly derided as a “witch hunt” and of which Mr. Mueller has seldom spoken publicly. He was a reluctant witness during a closely watched congressional hearing in July 2019, where he testified for nearly seven hours, giving many clipped answers and largely not straying from his report’s conclusions.Last summer, Mr. Mueller wrote an opinion essay for The Washington Post the day after Mr. Trump commuted the prison sentence of his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr., a political operative. In the essay, Mr. Mueller defended the prosecution of Mr. Stone for federal crimes as part of the Russia inquiry.“We made every decision in Stone’s case, as in all our cases, based solely on the facts and the law and in accordance with the rule of law,” Mr. Mueller wrote.Mr. Zebley told the University of Virginia that the course instructors would rely on public records to explain the path of the investigation.After the inquiry ended, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Zebley and Mr. Quarles left the Justice Department and returned to the private law firm WilmerHale in Washington, where they are partners. Mr. Goldstein is now a partner at the firm Cooley in Washington. Mr. Mueller and Mr. Zebley are both alumni of the University of Virginia’s law school.All four lawyers had notable careers at the Justice Department and said they were looking forward to sharing those experiences with students, according to the university.“I look forward to engaging with the students this fall,” Mr. Mueller said. More

The event on June 29 will be the first fund-raiser for Mr. Cuomo since overlapping investigations engulfed his administration earlier this year.Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will host a fund-raiser for the first time since overlapping scandals engulfed his administration and prompted calls for his resignation — the latest indication that he is gearing up to run for re-election.The fund-raiser, which will take place on June 29 at an undisclosed location in New York City, was advertised as a “summer reception” in a campaign email to supporters, who will need to fork over $10,000 per person, or $15,000 for two people, to attend.The mere act of holding a high-dollar, in-person fund-raiser after the end of the legislative session inflamed Mr. Cuomo’s critics, even as it underscored his everything-is-normal strategy in the face of several federal and state investigations into his personal conduct and the actions of his administration.The fund-raiser comes as Mr. Cuomo’s poll numbers have stabilized in recent months and he has dedicated most of his time to shoring up public support. Mr. Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, has a sizable $16.8 million cash on hand, according to campaign filings from January, and he appears intent on adding to it before the next filing in July.Still, few donors or lobbyists who were invited to the event were interested in discussing their plans publicly on Wednesday. Of eight invitees, only two said they planned to go. But none doubted that the governor, a prolific fund-raiser, would be able to attract enough takers for the event to raise its expected amount. (Similar events in the past — one asked couples to pay $25,000 — have aimed to raise $500,000, according to a person familiar with the governor’s fund-raising efforts.)“The pitch is, ‘I’m governor and I’m governing, head down, straightforward,’” said one person who received an invitation and requested anonymity to discuss it. The person did not plan to attend the fund-raiser.While Mr. Cuomo could use campaign contributions to mount a bid for a fourth term in 2022, he could also, in theory, use the money to pay for legal expenses related to the inquiries he is confronting, should he choose to hire his own lawyer, as some state officials have done.He has ignored the calls to resign that accompanied the investigations into sexual harassment claims from several women, his administration’s handling of nursing home deaths during the pandemic and his $5.1 million deal to write a memoir about the coronavirus outbreak.At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo said that he has not hired private counsel to represent him in the investigations, relying instead on outside lawyers paid for by the state, and that he had no plans “at this time” to use campaign funds for personal legal expenses.When Mayor Bill de Blasio faced state and federal inquiries into his campaign fund-raising activities during his first term, he used city funds to pay for the bulk of the legal fees. But he announced that he would personally pay a portion of the fees, about $300,000 that pertained to his “nongovernmental work.” (Mr. de Blasio has yet to settle that debt.)Last week, the state comptroller office approved a $2.5 million contract for Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason & Anello, a Manhattan law firm, to represent the administration in a federal investigation, overseen by the Eastern District of New York, into nursing home deaths and questions related to the publication of the governor’s book, “American Crisis.”The firm is also handling state and federal inquiries into the preferential access to coronavirus testing afforded to Mr. Cuomo’s family and other influential people, according to a partner there, Elkan Abramowitz.“The executive chamber has retained counsel, and that is a state expense,” Mr. Cuomo said on Wednesday. “It has been in every investigation, so that’s where we are now.”As the inquiries have multiplied, so has state spending on legal representation for Mr. Cuomo and his aides. In the case of Mr. Abramowitz’s firm alone, the state went from a $1.5 million in initial precontract paperwork in March to the approved $2.5 million just over two months later.And there are several other firms representing Mr. Cuomo, his aides and other state officials.A separate request for the state to contract with Mitra Hormozi, a lawyer with Walden Macht & Haran LLP, which is representing the executive chamber on an investigation overseen by the state attorney general into the sexual harassment claims, is under review, according to the state comptroller office.Another contract for Paul J. Fishman, a partner at Arnold & Porter, a firm which is also representing the governor’s office on the sexual harassment accusations, has not been submitted to the comptroller office.Mr. Cuomo is being represented individually by another attorney, Rita Glavin, who started her own firm this year.“We are in the process of finalizing these contracts subject to approval by the comptroller’s office,” Richard Azzopardi, a senior adviser to Mr. Cuomo, said in a statement. “We are abiding by all applicable rules and standards, and in matters like this it is not uncommon for legal representation to begin while the contracts are simultaneously being drafted for submission and approval. Doing it the other way could potentially leave the chamber and its employees without representation.”Mr. Cuomo could take on private counsel of his own apart from the lawyers being paid for by the state. Were he to do so, he could use campaign funds to pay for that representation.However the governor plans to spend the money, the June 29 fund-raiser would be the first test of his ability to gather contributions, something Mr. Cuomo has been effective at throughout his tenure.Even as most fund-raisers were canceled or went virtual during the pandemic, Mr. Cuomo raised more than $4 million during the latter half of 2020 and the first two weeks of 2021, during which the state confronted the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic and he promoted his pandemic memoir.His top-dollar contributors, who gave up to $69,700 each during that time period, included Larry Robbins, a hedge fund manager; Eric Schmidt, the billionaire former chief executive of Google; Frank McCourt, the businessman and former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers; and Robert Hale, a co-owner of the Boston Celtics.Real estate developers Gary Barnett, Daniel Brodsky, Jeffrey Gural, Harrison LeFrak and Larry Silverstein each gave $20,000 or more, while the billionaire leaders of the Estée Lauder Companies, Leonard A. Lauder and William Lauder, collectively contributed $82,000. More

The energetic leader of the small, right-wing Yamina party has managed to leverage his modest electoral gain for a shot at the top job.JERUSALEM — The morning after Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Naftali Bennett, the energetic leader of a relatively small, Israeli pro-settlement party, exulted before an audience of foreign reporters in Jerusalem, “The era of a Palestinian state is over!”Now, Mr. Bennett, 49, a former high-tech entrepreneur who insists that there must never be a full-fledged Palestinian state and that Israel should annex much of the occupied West Bank, is poised to become Israel’s next prime minister, replacing Benjamin Netanyahu.Mr. Bennett, a former ally of Mr. Netanyahu often described as more right wing than the prime minister, is the independently wealthy son of American immigrants. He first entered the Israeli Parliament eight years ago and is relatively unknown and inexperienced on the international stage, leaving much of the world — not to mention many Israelis — wondering what kind of leader he might be.Shifting between seemingly contradictory alliances, he has been called a right-wing extremist, a pragmatist and an opportunist.But in a measure of his talents, he has now pulled off a feat that is extraordinary even by the perplexing standards of Israeli politics: He has maneuvered himself into the top office even though his party, Yamina, won just seven of the 120 seats in the Parliament.A canny and ambitious beneficiary of Israel’s prolonged political morass, Mr. Bennett leveraged his modest but pivotal electoral weight after the inconclusive March election, Israel’s fourth in two years. He entered coalition talks as a kingmaker, and emerged as the one wearing the crown.In a career full of paradoxes, Mr. Bennett, once a top aide to Mr. Netanyahu, 71, played a crucial role in toppling his former boss, Israel’s longest-serving leader. As a result, Mr. Netanyahu was brought down — for now, at least — not only by his longtime rivals on the center and left of the political spectrum but also by someone considered even more hard-line.Naftali Bennett, left, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2020.  Sebastian Scheiner/Associated PressMr. Bennett has long championed West Bank settlers and once led the council representing them, but he has never been a settler, himself, and lives in Ra’anana, an affluent town in central Israel, with his wife and four children. He is religiously observant — he would be the first prime minister to wear a kipa — but he will head a governing coalition that is largely secular.He is best known for views on settlements, annexation and Palestinian statehood that many on Israel’s left and center — not to mention much of the world — consider not just wrong but dangerous. Yet his coalition spans Israel’s fractious political spectrum from left to right, and relies on the support of a small Arab, Islamist party.That coalition proposes to paper over its differences on Israeli-Palestinian relations by focusing on domestic matters.Mr. Bennett has explained his motives for teaming up with such ideological opposites as an act of last resort to end the political impasse that has paralyzed Israel.“The political crisis in Israel is unprecedented on a global level,” he said in a televised speech on Sunday. “We could end up with fifth, sixth, even 10th elections, dismantling the walls of the country, brick by brick, until our house falls in on us. Or we can stop the madness and take responsibility.”Now Mr. Bennett faces the greatest challenge of his political career, trying to hold that unlikely coalition together, to vault from being a second-tier figure to a national leader, and to maintain relations with Israel’s most important ally, the United States. President Biden has been cooler toward Mr. Netanyahu than Mr. Trump was.“There will be, I think, a collective sigh of relief within the Biden administration that they have new, young Israeli blood to deal with,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and a former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.Mr. Bennett will be pressured by the settler right to deliver for them, Mr. Indyk said, but it appears that “he has already accepted that he won’t be able to pursue that agenda.”He campaigned as the right-wing alternative to Mr. Netanyahu, who has held power for 12 years consecutively and 15 years overall, and is now standing trial on corruption charges. They have often differed more in tone than substance, as Mr. Bennett avoided the inflammatory language and long-running legal drama of his predecessor.Aida Touma-Sliman, a lawmaker from the Joint List of predominantly Arab parties, wrote on Twitter that Mr. Bennett would lead “a dangerous right-wing government,” one that would “remove Netanyahu and preserve his path.”After Mr. Bennett described Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday as a divisive and polarizing force, Mr. Netanyahu accused his former aide of using “the same hollow slogans about hate and division,” and of “committing the fraud of the century.”People who know him describe Mr. Bennett as likable and tolerant behind closed doors, a pragmatist at heart, though how that private person would translate to governing remains to be seen.Mr. Bennett, then serving as the economy minister and head of the Jewish Home Party, posing with high school students in 2015.Uriel Sinai for The New York Times“People think he’s a fanatic. He’s not,” said Ayelet Frish, an Israeli political consultant. She said Mr. Bennett once told her that he had grown up in a home of “Woodstock parents,” surrounded by mostly secular culture, and noted his time in the largely secular high-tech business world.Orit Galili-Zucker, a former strategic communications adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, said Mr. Bennett aimed “to present an alternative to Netanyahu’s toxic discourse.”In Mr. Bennett’s first campaign, in 2013, Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud party branded him as “a dangerous, messianic right-winger,” she said. Now Likud was calling him a “dangerous leftist,” she noted, for joining forces with the opposition leader Yair Lapid to unseat Mr. Netanyahu.Now Likud and its staunch ultra-Orthodox allies will be heading into the opposition.Under the new coalition’s government, Mr. Bennett will serve as prime minister for the first part of a four-year term, to be followed by the secular, centrist Mr. Lapid. By conceding the first turn in the rotation, Mr. Lapid smoothed the way for other right-wing politicians to join the anti-Netanyahu alliance..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Mr. Bennett represents a new generation in Israeli politics and would be the second-youngest prime minister in the country’s history; only Mr. Netanyahu, when he first came into the office a generation ago, was younger.Born in Israel, Mr. Bennett spent parts of his childhood living in the United States and Canada. He served in the same Israeli Army commando unit Mr. Netanyahu had. He then moved to New York and founded a software company that he later sold for $145 million, and served as chief executive of another company.He has had a fraught relationship with Mr. Netanyahu since a stint as his chief of staff ended in acrimony in 2008. A sharp critic of some of Mr. Netanyahu’s policies, he nevertheless sat in several Netanyahu-led governments as a minister, as well as in the opposition. In late 2019, Mr. Netanyahu appointed him as defense minister to keep Mr. Bennett on his side at a time of political turmoil, and he served in that role for about six months.Mr. Bennett at the Western Wall in Jerusalem ahead of parliamentary elections in 2013.Ammar Awad/ReutersOver the past decade, Mr. Bennett and his senior partner in Yamina, Ayelet Shaked, have run for office in an array of right-wing, pro-settlement parties with a dizzying series of name changes and allies. In 2013, when they were a pair of political newcomers, he formed what was seen as a surprising alliance with Mr. Lapid.Mr. Bennett has often punched above his weight on security issues. On the eve of the 2014 Gaza war, he presciently raised the threat arising from tunnels dug by Hamas beneath the Gaza-Israel border and pressed for a plan of action to neutralize them.Later that year, he wrote an uncompromising op-ed in The New York Times explaining his view that Israel could not allow the creation of a Palestinian state. He has proposed granting the Palestinians “a sort of autonomy on steroids” in about 40 percent of the West Bank, and gradually applying Israeli sovereignty in the rest of the territory — a move much of the world would consider illegal.The next year he wrote another op-ed forcefully condemning Jewish extremists who had stabbed participants at a gay pride parade in Jerusalem and burned three members of a Palestinian family to death in a West Bank village, denouncing the perpetrators as “terrorists.”At times, Mr. Bennett and Ms. Shaked joined forces with more radical political factions in the religious Zionist camp who are heavily influenced by their rabbis. Running as the New Right party in the April 2019 election, without their more extreme partners, they failed to gain enough votes to enter Parliament.In the run-up to this year’s election, the pair tried to broaden their appeal to more mainstream Israelis, and had more success, gathering some support from disaffected former Netanyahu voters. Mr. Bennett has been pushing a program for economic reform that he calls his “Singapore Plan,” supports curbing the powers of the judiciary and has criticized the present government’s handling of the pandemic.After the election, neither the pro-Netanyahu bloc of parties nor the anti-Netanyahu group could form a parliamentary majority without his party. Both sides courted him, offering him a chance to serve as prime minister in a rotation agreement. Mr. Bennett made it clear he would have preferred to join a right-wing government, but Mr. Netanyahu proved unable to form one. More