Monday, Naftali Bennett will speak at Princeton. He doesn’t speak for us.

The following is an open letter and reflects the authors’ views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.

On Monday, the Center for Jewish Life (CJL) is hosting ex-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett for a conversation on his political career. The event is ticketed, will be held at an off-campus location, and, to our knowledge, was only advertised to the CJL and Chabad listservs. While it is the CJL’s right to host Bennett, we, as Jewish students, disavow and spurn the rhetoric that he has spread across college campuses in the United States, and call on others to join us. 

Between 2006 and 2008, Bennett served as Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff, before serving as the head of the Yesha Council, the main political body representing Israeli settlers who live in occupied territory in violation of international law. 

A year after becoming prime minister, Bennett dissolved parliament in a move that triggered Netanyahu’s reelection. Since then, Netanyahu has used his administration to oppose a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and –– in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attacks — wage a campaign in Gaza that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children. While Bennett has conveyed doubts about how the Netanyahu administration is waging that war, he still supports continued fighting above a ceasefire, only leading to more death and destruction.

In and out of office, Bennett has strongly argued against the creation of a Palestinian state, instead suggesting Israeli annexation of Area C in the West Bank — what he refers to as “Judea and Samaria,” biblical terms long associated with a strain of Israeli right-wing politics aiming to further oppress Palestinians and hinder the possibility of Palestinian statehood. He has said that “the most important thing is for Israel to build, build, build,” in reference to illegal West Bank settlements, and that he “will do everything in [his] power to oppose a Palestinian state.” 

It is precisely rhetoric like Bennett’s that has increased state and settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. 

Now, he’s saying that he will not include Arab parties in his government if his party, widely expected to be successful, wins in the October 2026 parliamentary elections. Approximately one-fifth of Israeli citizens are Arab — around two million people.

As progressive Jews, we oppose Naftali Bennett’s long encouragement of West Bank settlement and disregard of Palestinian autonomy. In the strongest possible terms, we reject encroachment on the West Bank that so often involves settler and state-backed violence toward Palestinians. We want to make it extremely clear that — even as the CJL, Chabad of Princeton, and program in Judaic studies cosponsor the upcoming event with Bennett — many Jews at Princeton strongly disagree with Bennett’s actions and statements. 

The event is also remarkably closed. Again, to our knowledge, it was only disseminated to the CJL and Chabad listservs. Students must submit questions beforehand. We worry these questions may be filtered and that students may not be able to ask them themselves. Listening from outside of the event will be difficult — Bennett’s past events have been off-the-record, and we expect his Princeton appearance to be the same. Non-ticketed members of the student body will not even know where the event is being held, just that it will take place at an “off-campus location,” that ticketed members will not hear about until 24 hours before the event. 

By limiting who attends these events and what topics can be discussed, Bennett avoids difficult but important conversations about his positions that could be started by Jewish and non-Jewish students alike who are not on the CJL or Chabad listserv. The framing of this event limits important discourse on a contentious issue on campus, precisely at a time where the exchange of ideas is so important. 

Given the requirement for questions to be submitted beforehand, those who are attending will not be able to respond to what Bennett says over the course of the event and will have no idea of whether their submitted questions will even be asked in the first place.

We also worry that Bennett will use this event at Princeton as campaign material for his anticipated push to return to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. The CJL’s flyer for the event acknowledges that “while Mr. Bennett has not yet announced his return to politics, he’s generally considered … the leading candidate to be the next Prime Minister of Israel.” 

He has also appeared at Columbia and Yale, as well as Harvard — where he joked that if audience members were disruptive during the event, he would “just give them a pager,” referring to the September 2024 Israeli attacks in Lebanon where the Israelis detonated thousands of handheld pagers used by the militant group Hezbollah.

By using these events to talk about his life in business at Harvard or his return to politics here at Princeton, Bennett is drumming up diaspora support to advance his political aims of further subjugating Palestinians. Bennett seems to be starting his campaign trail on the campuses of U.S. colleges and universities. We refuse to be a stomping ground for his racist rhetoric and violent policies: As Jews and University affiliates, we write to say this invitation and endorsement of Bennett is not in our name.    

Ultimately, it is important for us — as Jewish people — to stand against Naftali Bennett. We see the structure of this event as limiting free speech and civil discourse surrounding his presence. We don’t expect there to be space for dissent in Bennett’s talk next week, so consider this letter us making our own space: We dissent. We, the undersigned, object to Bennett’s threats of violence against students, history of actions normalizing inequality and violence toward Palestinians, and encouragement of illegal settlements in the West Bank. We urge our fellow Jewish students and other members of our campus community to join us.

Elena Eiss is a first-year from Pittsburgh, Pa., and Assistant Opinion Editor Charlie Yale is a first-year from Omaha, Neb. Both are leaders of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives.

Correction: The version of this open letter circulated for signatures said that the email promoting the lecture was only sent to the CJL listserv. In fact, it was also sent to the Chabad listserv.

Signed,

Emanuelle Sippy ’25

Martin Mastnak ’25

Ben Gelman ’23

Dylan Shapiro ’23

Hannah Gabelnick ’26

Bryce Springfield ’25

Katie Heinzer ’22

Jacob Neis GS, Classics

Mohamed El Hedi Bahri GS ’23, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Dane Lester ’28

Tom Abi Samra GS, Near Eastern Studies

Patrick Jaojoco GS, Architecture

Isaac Barsoum ’28

Aedan Fraley ’27

Max Weiss, Professor of History

Alan Plotz ’25

Jonathan Mandel GS, Art and Archaeology

Johana Lara ’25

Jo Goldman ’25

Sakura Price ’23

Annabelle Luo ’28

Curtis Deutsch, Professor of Geosciences and the High Meadows Environmental Institute

Aminah Aliu ’25

Emer Kilgallon ’25

Laurence Drayton ’26

Jeremy Zullow ’17

Jim LaRegina, Graduate/Undergraduate Administrator, Near Eastern Studies

Adam B. Sanders ’25

Josh Isaacs GS, Geosciences

Rio Baran ’25

Emmett Weisz ’27

Holly Bushman GS, Architecture

Narges Anzali ’28

Chris Stone GS ’02, Near Eastern Studies

Masha Musthafa ’25

Zahid Chaudhary, Associate Professor of English

Yahya Habib ’26

Nicholas Urbati ’25

Ariel Munczek Edelman GS, School of Public and International Affairs

Brandon Matthew Gauthier ’25

Connie Gong ’25

Katie Rohrbaugh ’24

Alliyah Gregory ’25

Gabby Styris ’28

Leila Granier ’26

Carter Lang ’27

Collin Guedel ’26

Alex Chauncey-Heine ’24

Blue Carlsson ’25

Kyrah Potter ’25

Georgia Martin ’27

Lucy Shea ’27

Rowan Johnson ’27

Jacob Jackson ’26

Lisa Clemans-Cope ’94

Christian Bischoff, GS, English

Matthew Mariman, Library Collections Specialist V, Princeton University Library

Sam Yamashita ’26

Sofia Menemenlis GS, Atmospheric and Oceanic Studies

Ana Sanchez-Martinez ’26

Pyo Tarapi ’28

Dana Benavides ’28

Yousuf Abdelfatah GS, Politics

Thomas Verrill ’25

Haley Choueiri ’25

Adham Ibrahim ’27

Salil Sharma, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Politics

Sophia Vernon ’27

Zoe Daly ’28

Callisto Lim ’28

Irene Kim ’28

Andrew Duke ’25

Angela Brown GS, Art and Archaeology

Noah Barkan ’28

Zachariah Sippy ’23

Ryan Oet GS, Computer Science

Jack Toubes ’25

Christian Salazar ’25

Salma Alhsni ’28

Yushra Guffer ’26

Valerie Neske ’25

Gyan Prakash, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History

Anha Khan ’26

Abigail Leibowitz ’26

Alex Norbrook ’26

Pria G. Jackson GS, Classics

Rachael Schnurr GS, History

Abdullah Rizvi ’27

Matt Heinle GS, Geosciences

Fatima Diallo ’25

Pedro Espino, Research Software Engineer II, Geosciences

Qiqi Yang GS, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Angie Rabih ’25

Amina Anowara ’25

Fawzia Afzal-Khan, Visiting Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies

Tobias Rosen GS, Art and Archaeology

Fay Slakey GS, Comparative Literature

Meredith Martin, Professor of English

Hal Foster ’77, Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology

Lara Harb, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies

Eleanor Wright ’28

V. Mitch McEwen, Assistant Professor of Architecture

Molly Greene, Professor of History and Hellenic Studies

Quentin Colón Roosevelt ’27

Chaya Holch ’23

Nipuna Ginige ’26

Poorvi Bellur GS, History

Elena Milliken ’26

Aron Wander ’15

Tehseen Thaver, Assistant Professor of Religion

Dane Lester ’28

Khari Franklin ’24

Luz Victoria Simon Jasso ’24

Theodore Gross ’24

Victoria Koretsky ’26

Maya Rosen ’17

Lucy Carlin ’28

Cassie Eng ’25

Victoria Koretsky ’26

Claire Nuchtern ’15

Ardon Shorr, Lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program

Kaleb Boyd ’24

Ibrahim Bata ’26

Nadine Lombardo-Han GS ’22, School of Public and International Affairs

April Alliston, Professor of Comparative Literature

Daniel Garber, A. Watson Armour III University Professor of Philosophy

Noura Shoukfeh ’25

Jabari Lawrence GS, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Wilson Conn ’25

Raghav Pradhan ’28

Nate Howard ’25

Sara Ryave ’24

Michelle Lerner ’93

Kristin Nagy ’27

Jessica Ng, Postdoctoral Research Associate, High Meadows Environmental Institute