Gideon Levy
Gideon LevyAmir Levy/Flash 90

Haaretz columnist Gideon Levy predicted Sunday morning that Yamina chairman Naftali Bennett will be Israel's next prime minister after Binyamin Netanyahu leaves office.

Bennett "would be much more destructive" than Netanyahu, the far-left Levy claimed. "Apart from the rotten culture of governance that Netanyahu has led, the only advantage would be the end of deception. With Bennett at the helm, Israel would be officially declared a capitalist, colonialist apartheid state."

"A settler leader as prime minister, even if he lives within the Green Line in Ra’anana, would symbolize a new chapter in Zionist history. A man who wears a skullcap [kippah], small as it might be, would represent a new image of another Israel," he said. "What began as a pressure group of rabbis and politicos with rifles and Torah scrolls crazily dancing and shouting on stolen rocky hilltops would enter the prime minister’s residence as respectable and accepted leadership. A descendant of Gush Emunim and a representative of religious-nationalist Zionism would head the Israeli government. It’s hard to imagine a more extreme turn of events."

Levy warned that "Bennett is the Yamina party and the Yamina party is uncompromising nationalism and racism that will never view the Palestinians as a people with any kind of national rights in their country. In other words, explicit and proud apartheid."

"That’s preferable to covert, embarrassed apartheid. Bennett in the prime minister’s residence would ensure that Israel is portrayed as it is. That’s an advantage. But Bennett also means war in Gaza and Lebanon, and Bennett is Bezalel Smotrich, whose statements are reminiscent of patently fascist remarks. Bennett is also Ayelet Shaked, who has wanted to destroy the judicial system and hasn’t yet succeeded."