A tech millionaire runs an unapologetic, macho political campaign, calling for a new beginning, and claiming to speak truth to power, in a challenge to the establishment.

Sound familiar? That sentence could easily describe Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett or Labor leadership candidate Erel Margalit.

When Margalit released his first campaign video last month, the first wave of responses focused on the fact that he used some mild expletives; the clip’s tagline was “Give us back the country, damn it!” There was a lot of talk about how this was Donald Trump-esque vulgarity entering the Israeli political scene.

Then, the chattering classes began pointing out that Margalit had hired Moshe Klughaft, Bennett’s longtime strategist, and that the two campaigns seemed to be using the same language (minus the cursing in Bennett’s campaign). Continue reading