Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Saturday night that in a meeting with President Vladimir Putin last March, the latter pledged to him that he would not kill Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In a podcast interview with religious reporter/comedian Hanoch Daum that lasted just shy of five (5) hours, Bennett recalled: “I knew that Zelensky was under threat, he was in a bunker in an unknown location. We’re already jumping into the meeting, I say to Putin: ‘Listen, what about this story, are you going to kill?’ And he said: ‘I will not kill Zelensky.'”
According to Bennett, after the meeting with Putin, on his way from the Kremlin to the airport, he called Zelensky and told him that Putin had promised not to kill him. “He asked me: ‘Are you sure?’ I said: ‘100 percent, he’s not killing you,'” Bennett said.
The NY Times reported last December that a few days into the invasion, Putin told Bennett that the Ukrainians had turned out to be “tougher than I was told.” However,” he warned Bennett, “we are a big country and we have patience.”
In October 2021, during his first meeting with Bennett, Putin attacked President Zelensky, saying: “What kind of Jew is he? He’s an enabler of Nazism.”
In March of last year, Bennett secretly flew to a meeting with Putin in the Kremlin and became the first Western leader to meet with the Russian president since the invasion of Ukraine. At a cabinet the next day, he referred to the meeting, saying: “We will continue to help as much as we are asked. Even if the chance is not great, as soon as there is even a small opening, and we have access to all parties and the ability, I see it as our moral duty to make every attempt. As long as the candle is lit – we must make an effort, and maybe we can still take action.”
Of course, while Bennett was busy making peace between Russia and Ukraine, his own party members were busy meeting with the opposition parties, scheming to ditch him. Bennett forgot, or maybe never knew, the adage made famous by House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D-Mas), “All politics is local.”
Daum took pity on his followers and posted on his Facebook page a hectic summary of his 4 hours and 51 minutes interview, so we won’t have to. Here goes:
“When you listen to the podcast, you’ll be able to hear for the first time what Ukrainian President Zelensky asked Bennett to deliver to Putin and how it is related to Zelensky’s first exit from the bunker and the selfie he took in the streets of Kiev. Why does Bennett support the decision to keep the photo of his good friend Emmanuel Moreno confidential to this day? What exactly was in his overlapping meeting with Netanyahu, why did it only last about 20 minutes, and why did he insist on not sitting in the prime minister’s chair (which was already his) during the meeting? Bennett also told me what really happened to his children the year he was prime minister, what was the mistake he made in dealing with the issue of the PM’s residence in Ra’anana, what happened in the conversation between him and Gideon Sa’ar in which he suggested that Sa’ar become the head of the right-wing government, why in his opinion, even though Mansour Abbas is a groundbreaking leader, it’s impossible to form a coalition that will depend on Ra’am at this time, why did he fall in love with the police special force unit, what’s his recommendation for Bezalel Smotrich, what is his position on the justice system, what does he think about Netanyahu’s criminal cases, what is actually the “poison machine” that in his eyes brought down his government, how many libel suits he is planning and wasn’t he once part of his own poison machine. We also talked about Lapid, Ben Gvir, Ayelet Shaked, about his dear father, about Liberman who was his nemesis and became his partner, about the second-Israel theory of Avishai Ben Haim, about Iran and Gaza, and whatnot.”
Look, the man kept quiet for six months – it had to all come out sooner or later.
