This article is from: srnnews.com
Israel’s Youngest Political Candidate Shuns ‘Petty Politics,’ Represents War Generation
Yonatan Shalev, Bennett’s youngest recruit, talks about reserve duty, Haredi enlistment, settler violence, and Palestinian statehood, and outlines the role he hopes to play in parliament
By Gabriel Colodro / The Media Line
When asked where he wanted to work in the Knesset, Yonatan Shalev did not offer a prepared answer. “I really haven’t thought too much about what role I want,” the 23-year-old candidate said. He mentioned the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, the Education Committee, and the Culture and Sports Committee before widening his answer to say that he would take any assignment that allowed him to work on the lives of young Israelis. “I come to learn, but really to act,” Shalev said in an interview with The Media Line.
The answer captured both the opportunity and the uncertainty surrounding Shalev’s rapid entry into national politics. Naftali Bennett brought Shalev into his electoral campaign in April, shortly before it became part of Together (Beyachad), and said Shalev would stand at the “forefront” of the party’s slate. A list number did not accompany the announcement. If the party wins enough seats to bring him into the Knesset, he will become the youngest lawmaker in Israeli history.
Shalev was already active in the fight over ultra-Orthodox enlistment. He helped form Shoulder to Shoulder in 2024, when young soldiers and reservists began organizing against broad draft exemptions. He has said the death of a close friend in the war was the moment he decided he wanted to do something larger. The movement brought him into Knesset committee rooms well before he had a realistic chance of occupying a seat in one.
He is candid about the credentials he does not have. “I am not an economist. I am not an academic. I am not someone with a doctorate or a professorship,” he said. “I have a very simple mission: to represent young people and put young people on the agenda.” He clarified that while the mission was clear, carrying it out would be complex and come with considerable responsibility.
Shalev returned repeatedly to the absence of anyone aged 18 to 30 from the Knesset. That gap looks different, he argued, after years in which young adults have moved between reserve duty and civilian life, with studies, jobs, and family plans interrupted by repeated call-ups. Politicians can promise to speak for them, Shalev said, but without someone who has shared that experience, “de facto, they are not represented.”
He also rejected a narrow definition of national security. “National security is not only an F-35, a laser defense layer, Iron Dome, or technology that can protect citizens,” he said. “National security is a society and an economy capable of sustaining a large, technologically advanced military.” Israel, he added, also needs an education system that produces excellence and a society in which responsibility is shared.
That formulation allowed Shalev to connect military readiness with the concerns that sometimes push young Israelis to consider leaving the country: the cost of living, housing, education, and uncertainty about their economic future. He accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of making short-term political decisions that weaken the institutions needed to sustain Israel over the coming decades.
His policy prescriptions were less detailed. Shalev pointed to operational plans published by Together covering the cost of living, reservists, education, and other areas, but offered no targets, budgets, or timetables during the interview. On ultra-Orthodox conscription, his most developed issue, he argued that the government’s proposed legislation would entrench draft avoidance while leaving a smaller share of the population to support both the military and the economy.
Shalev said he entered Bennett’s campaign with some anxiety and treats public office with what he described as reverence. He also said he holds a significant campaign role rather than a junior position. Critics who question his age, he argued, are dismissing a constituency established politicians have failed to reach. “It should not be strange to see young people in politics,” he said.
His transition from activist to party candidate has already produced some less disciplined moments. He accused former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot of endangering the country by delaying a broader electoral alliance. Shalev later characterized that wording as unsuccessful, praised Eisenkot’s lifetime of security service, and said he would not allow political opponents to provoke a fight inside the anti-Netanyahu bloc.
Shalev was clearest when asked about attacks by people he described as young Jewish extremists against Palestinian communities in the West Bank. “Terror is terror,” he said. “These actions are intended to frighten and threaten, and they must be dealt with at the root.”
For Shalev, the immediate issue is enforcement. “The laws that apply to me here in Tel Aviv should also apply in Judea and Samaria,” he said. He was careful not to cast all settlers together. Many, he said, are law-abiding Israelis who fought beside him, and they also suffer when extremists attack Palestinians. As for why the violence continues, Shalev blamed a government that, in his view, has little interest in lowering the flames.
That position did not extend to support for Palestinian statehood. “There will be no Palestinian state during the tenure of a government led by us,” Shalev said. Establishing one after the October 7 attack, he argued, would be viewed as a reward for terrorism. He said Israel should improve conditions for people living in the West Bank while concentrating on removing Qatari and Turkish influence from Gaza and converting Israel’s military gains on several fronts into diplomatic arrangements.
Shalev reserved his sharpest language for Defense Minister Israel Katz, whom he accused of treating war as a tool of political advancement. Invoking American Civil War Union General William Tecumseh Sherman’s declaration that “war is hell.”
Shalev said: “For our defense minister, war is primaries.” He called Katz “Israel ‘Boom-Boom’ Katz,” referring to campaign videos that glorified military strikes, and said the defense minister had failed to translate the IDF’s battlefield achievements into lasting outcomes.
Entering politics has also brought Shalev personal threats. On August 5, he filed a complaint at a Tel Aviv police station after receiving social media messages warning him to look both ways while walking “if you want to live.” Israeli media reported that the police opened an investigation.
He described the threats and public insults as part of what he called a political “poison machine” aimed at discouraging young people from entering public life. He singled out Channel 14 commentator Yaakov Bardugo, who used a Hebrew insult to describe him on air. “I had to fight real enemies,” Shalev said. “I do not fear threats against my life, certainly not when they come from Israeli citizens.”
“Fifty years from now, when my generation is ready to pass the torch, I want us to look at our grandchildren and ask whether we preserved the country entrusted to us and passed on the miracle established here in 1948,” Shalev said. But before Shalev can choose a committee assignment, Bennett must determine his place on the party’s slate—and voters must decide how many of its candidates enter the Knesset.
Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
