Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett vies for position again amid ongoing war

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett discussed his desire to reclaim his position amid the ongoing war in Israel.

Bennett served as Israel's right-wing prime minister from 2021 to 2022, and his new opposition bloc has ideas on ending the conflict with Hamas that they believe could topple sitting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

If he became prime minister again, Bennett said he would apply more pressure on Hamas, cutting off their resources, currently being allowed into the Gaza Strip, to undermine their ability to hold out.

ABC News' Linsey Davis sat down with Bennett on Tuesday as he vies for the position again.

ABC NEWS: Joining us now, we are so fortunate to have with us Naftali Bennett, who served as the 13th prime minister of Israel from 2021 to 2022. Mr. Bennett, thank you so much for joining us. When you left office, you vowed to stay away from politics for at least a decade, but now you're back, maneuvering with a new opposition bloc in the hopes of beating Prime Minister Netanyahu. As you well know, six hostages were found murdered just over the weekend. There could be dozens more still alive. How would you act differently to get them home?

BENNETT: What I would do is apply tremendous pressure on Hamas, pressure that is not being used now. For example, Israel right now is allowing huge, vast amounts of fuel and other resources into the strip. And all of this goes directly to Hamas, and that's giving them the lifeline to continue holding out.

ABC NEWS: When President Biden was asked Monday if Netanyahu was doing enough to reach a hostage deal, he said point blank "No." Just tonight, Netanyahu's nemesis Benny Gantz said he does not look directly at the public and tell the truth. He claims Netanyahu is less interested in cutting a deal and more interested in simply staying in power by appealing to Israel's right. Would you agree?

BENNETT: I think the most important thing in order to get this done is to apply tremendous pressure. And right now, we're operating at about 5% intensity. We have very few forces right now in the Gaza Strip. There's not a real war going on. There's a minor presence of IDF. This is not how you win a war. If you want to win a war, you got to fight 200%, not 5%.

ABC NEWS: And I would add, just as a question, because you're suggesting that it's not a full-on war when you have more than 40,000 people who have died at this point -- Palestinians. What, at what cost does Israel defend itself?

BENNETT: Well, a great deal of that number -- I would say over 50% -- are terrorists. And, I think we all agree that it's a wonderful thing when murderers and terrorists disappear. That's what you did to bin Laden, and that's what we're doing to these horrible, horrible murderers. So that's a good thing. Actually, our ratio of collateral damage is one of the lowest in the history of urban warfare.

Now, the fact that there are, let's say, 20,000 Gaza civilians have died. It's because Hamas deliberately wanted them to die because they embedded themselves within civilians. So, the, you know, the blame and responsibility falls only, only on Hamas, not on Israel. When you're a coward and you go and murder and rape Israelis, and then you run back and hide behind your own family, then you are responsible for killing your own family.

ABC NEWS: You've said you don't believe in a two-state solution. Why not a two-state solution? And what would be your proposed solution?

BENNETT: Because they'll kill us.

ABC NEWS: There's no way to live in peace?

BENNETT: Not with people who want to kill you. Well, what we've learned over the past 30 years is every time we gave the Palestinians a piece of land, instead of building it into a beautiful Singapore, they turned it into a terror state and began killing Israelis.

It happened first time in the '90s when we did Oslo [Accords]. It happened the second time in 2005, when we gave them all of the Gaza Strip and they began shooting rockets at us. And later on Oct. 7 -- we're not going to kill ourselves a third time. It's a horrible, horrible idea to inject a terror state on our borders.

ABC NEWS: But isn't Hamas separate from the will of the Palestinian people? 

BENNETT: The Palestinian people elected Hamas in democratic elections.

ABC NEWS: Right. But there are Palestinians there who are saying that they could live in peace. Right. Let me let me ask you this way ...

BENNETT: Yeah, there are, but it's a very ... minority, it's a minority in every poll. And the most important poll of elections: out of 132 seats in parliament, Hamas got 76. That's much more than 50%.

So if the Palestinians elected Hamas and Hamas is a murderous organization, we've got a problem. I'm certainly not going to give these people an opportunity to kill me.

ABC NEWS: So what's the solution in your mind?

BENNETT: The solution is for Israel to be incredibly strong. Maximum security for Israel. Minimum friction between Israelis and Palestinians. Minimum governance of, we don't want to govern the Palestinians. And under those three principles, I think we can go a very long way.

ABC NEWS: Former Prime Minister of Israel Naftali Bennett, we thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time.

BENNETT: Thank you very much.