This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. About a decade ago, I went to a well-to-do

suburb north of Tel Aviv to meet with a youngish Israeli politician whose name was Nafthali

Bennett.

I showed up at his house and it was big, it was modern, and had flat-screen TVs.

And we sat outside and he talked about his years in the software industry and working as a chief of staff to Benjamin Netanyahu.

Bennett was something pretty new in Israeli politics. He promised, I wrote then,

to build a sturdy electoral bridge between the religious and the secular, the hilltop outposts of

the West Bank and the startup suburbs. Bennett was fluent in Facebook. He quoted Seinfeld as much as he did

the books of the Talmud, and he had been a

leader of the settlers, but he no longer lived in a settlement. Yet there was no ambiguity at all

about Bennett's stance on the Palestinian question. He was a hard liner. He disdained the peace

process of an earlier time. I'll do everything in my power to make sure they never

get a state, he told me. No more illusions. Neftali Bennett is now the prime minister of Israel,

having unseeded Benjamin Netanyahu, who was the longest running prime minister in the history

of the state. Last week, I reached out to two writers in the region,

one Palestinian and one Israeli, to talk about this political upheaval. Ruth, how are you?

Hi. I'm good. How are you? I'm great. It's fine. It's good to see you. Ruth Marguile

lives in Tel Aviv and she reports for the New Yorker from around the region.

Now, Ruth, the coalition that brought Neftali Bennett to power just now is all over the map politically.

But he himself, obviously, is very hard line on the Palestinian question.

The coalition loathes Netanyahu, but I'm not quite sure how anything is going to change where the Palestinian question is concerned. Do you?

...