Former prime minister Naftali Bennett clarified Friday that he would not include far-right Otzma Yehudit leader and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir in any future government that he would form.

“I want to be clear, Itamar Ben Gvir has no place in my government,” Bennett wrote on X, along with a video of him campaigning and speaking to members of the public.

“That’s not because of ‘boycotts,’ but because he is a failed minister, who acts like a bully and a racist against the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state,” he wrote.

Bennett’s comments came after he was recorded earlier in the week at a conference saying he would not “boycott” Ben Gvir, a far-right nationalist with a history of anti-Arab racism.

He has been accused of politicizing the police force and neglecting the Arab community amid the worst-ever spate of violent killings the community has seen.

Violent killings have been rampant in Arab cities and towns over the past decade, but the issue worsened considerably in 2023 — the same year that Ben Gvir was appointed national security minister — when the number of homicides jumped to 244, doubling the previous year’s figure of 116. The tally dipped slightly in 2024 before reaching new heights last year, when 252 people were murdered.

Bennett, whose party is currently predicted by most polls to be the second-largest in the Knesset following this year’s election after Netanyahu’s Likud, is widely seen as Netanyahu’s main challenger for the premiership.

The vote must be held by the end of October, but could come earlier if the coalition collapses.

He earlier this week also said that he would not allow Israel’s “failed” leadership to continue or be part of it, and that a leader “must know when to step aside,” in what appeared to be his first remarks suggesting that he would not sit in a government with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

However, the former prime minister has previously reneged on vows not to sit with certain factions.

Days ahead of the 2021 elections, Bennett explicitly promised not to sit in a government under Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid or with Arab parties — a promise he broke weeks later as he formed the coalition that ousted Netanyahu.

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