When the 2013 election campaign opened, the young new chairman of HaBayit HaYehudi Party Naftali Bennett was a rather unknown politician who, within a fairly short time, succeeded in making the waning religious party trendy among young secular people. By employing upbeat and positive slogans in the spirit of “something new is in the air” and “Bennett is your bro,” HaBayit HaYehudi was able to win hearts while downplaying the radical right-wing figures on its slate. The election campaign focused to a great extent on Jewish tradition, family values and the cost of living in the zeitgeist of the social protest, with a promise of a better future. The result was a huge success: 12 seats that turned Bennett into a political powerhouse.

Barely two years have passed since then, and 2015 Bennett is a totally different person. Championing an aggressive and nationalistic campaign, he relates not only to the diplomatic context vis-a-vis the Palestinians, but also to the issue of Arab Israelis. To date, this issue has been more associated with Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, the chairman of the Yisrael Beitenu Party. Bennett’s Feb. 8 “thieves speech” at Tel Aviv University and the subsequent uproar it sparked is another expression of the nationalistic hallmarks of HaBayit HaYehudi’s current election campaign.

In his address, Bennett observed that internal security within certain areas of Israel has been deteriorating for over a decade. In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with this assertion, yet Bennett was apparently alluding to areas where Arabs live. Among other things, he offhandedly remarked, “Anyone who’s gone traveling in the Negev in recent years knows that they can’t leave their car … because it will be broken into and stolen." Several students, some of them Arabs, walked out of the auditorium in protest.

A few hours later, Bennett tried to explain in a Facebook post that he wasn’t targeting Arabs. Since then, he has repeatedly protested the racist interpretation of his remarks. His protests notwithstanding, one cannot ignore the fact that his address allegedly besmirched an entire minority that makes up a fifth of Israel’s citizens.