While there is much about the new prime minister Naftali Bennett that is unusual—the small size of his party, the parliamentary gridlock that preceded his formation of the government, the heterogeneity of the coalition he leads—perhaps most noteworthy is that he is the first religiously observant head of Israel’s government. Oddly, his victory signals a loss for both the ḥaredi parties and for the Religious Zionist party that Bennett himself once led, albeit under a different name. Bennett’s chief coalition partner, who will succeed him in two years per a rotation agreement, is Yair Lapid—the embodiment of the secular, liberal Tel Aviv elite. Likewise his other partners include two secular left-wing parties and an avowedly secular right-wing party; the only other religious party in the government is Muslim.

Oren Kessler, writing before Bennett was confirmed in his position, considers the significance of Israel’s first kippah-clad chief executive:

Prime Minister Bennett represents the mainstreaming of religion in the state of Israel’s 73rd year. He aims to unite right and left, devout and secular, the hills of Samaria with the country’s high-tech center. He has long believed religious and right-wing Israelis are the silenced majority, their voices obstructed by left-wing elites in media, the courts, and academia. But he favors honey to vinegar; he wants to bring [the religious West Bank community of] Tekoa to Tel Aviv. If in the process the country’s face becomes a little more religious, a little more right-wing, so much the better.

But [his selection as prime minister] represents a broader acceptance in Israel of religion’s growing presence in the public square. Lapid’s late father headed a party whose core platform was protecting secularism and combating [what it believed to be] religious coercion; as recently as the early 2000s it was the third-largest faction in parliament.

Much water has flown since then, to borrow a Hebrew expression. There were the grim years of the second intifada, the 2005 pullout from Gaza and the surge in rockets that followed, and the crashing failure of the Oslo Accords’ two-state vision. There is no straight or direct line leading from these developments to a Bennett premiership, but there is the feeling, deep and wide across the country, that the future promised by Israel’s historically secular, center-left leadership has proved a mirage.

“I don’t support religious coercion, but I do believe that Judaism is our ‘why;’ Judaism is the reason for our existence and the justification for our existence, and the meaning of our existence,” he once told the liberal journalist Ari Shavit.

Even if the agreement with Hamas to secure the release of some, and possibly all, of the remaining hostages—and the bodies of those no longer alive—is a prudent decision for Israel, it comes at a very high price: potentially leaving Hamas in control of Gaza and the release of vast numbers of Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands. Nadav Shragai reminds us of the history of such agreements:

We cannot forget that the terrorists released in the Jibril deal during the summer of 1985 became the backbone of the first intifada, resulting in the murder of 165 Israelis. Approximately half of the terrorists released following the Oslo Accords joined Palestinian terror groups, with many participating in the second intifada that claimed 1,178 Israeli lives. Those freed in [exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011] constructed Gaza, the world’s largest terror city, and brought about the October 7 massacre. We must ask ourselves: where will those released in the 2025 hostage deal lead us?

Taking these painful concessions into account Michael Oren argues that they might nonetheless be necessary:

From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war. Israelis, for their part, were torn between those who felt that they could not send their children to the army so long as hostages remained in captivity and those who held that, if Hamas wins, Israel will not have an army at all.

While 33 hostages will be released in the first stage, dozens—alive and dead—will remain in Gaza, prolonging their families’ suffering. The relatives of those killed by the Palestinian terrorists now going free will also be shattered. So, too, will the Israelis who still see soldiers dying in Gaza almost daily while Hamas rocket fire continues. What were all of Israel’s sacrifices for, they will ask. . . .

Perhaps this outcome was unavoidable from the beginning. Perhaps the deal is the only way of reconciling Israel’s mutually exclusive goals of annihilating Hamas and repatriating the hostages. Perhaps, despite Israel’s subsequent military triumph, this is the price for the failures of October 7.