A Few Minutes with MK Amichai Chikli

“Why I Left Naftali Bennett” — Rebel MK Amichai Chikli on Naftali Bennett’s betrayal 

Amichai Chikli was that renegade. Of Tunisian-French extraction, Chikli was raised in a traditional family in the conflict-ridden Jerusalem of the 1990s, a background that gave him his conservative political views. After serving in the elite Egoz special forces unit, he went on to a career in education, founding the Tavor pre-military academy in Israel’s north.

Number seven on the Bennett-Shaked ticket for Israel’s recent fourth round of elections, Chikli refused to break with Yamina’s promises on entering government. Our interview, which started as an attempt to understand Naftali Bennett from a player close to the action, turned into a wide-ranging conversation on realpolitik and Jewish values in Israel. A scholar of the Middle East, Chikli’s historical fears for the new Israeli government were summed up in one word.

“Chamberlainic” is how he described a government nominally led by Naftali Bennett, but whose tone is set by Yair Lapid.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: You’ve known Naftali Bennett for about a decade, and he brought you into the Knesset on the Yamina list — did it ever cross your mind that he would form a government with the left?

No, even for me as a party insider, it was a 100 percent surprise. You saw the dozens of videos in which Bennett said he wouldn’t sit under Yair Lapid as a prime minister, or join with the far-left Meretz party after they supported investigating Israeli soldiers for war crimes in the Hague. It wasn’t just what he said — it was the firm tone of voice in which he made these promises that he’s broken.