After 4 trips to the voting booth in less than 4 years, it’s no surprise that, prior to Israel’s November 1 elections, there was little movement in voter sentiment. Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and those who are horrified at this prospect. Polls consistently show that the electorate is coming out of a new stalemate.
However, there is one exception to this recreation of the last election, and that is that of the extreme right. Polls show the alliance known as religious Zionism, a grouping of devout Zionist parties, Otzma Yehudit and Noam, is poised to double the number of seats it controls in the Knesset from 120 members to 14 in this week’s election. This would make the alliance the third-largest bloc in the Knesset and guarantee it a variety of high-profile cabinet portfolios should Netanyahu’s bureaucracy be a devout right-wing government.
The concepts and attitudes that make up the platform of devout Zionism have long remained on the margins of Israeli politics, but have been rejected by the respectable right, represented by the likes of Netanyahu and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. His platform includes things like annexing West Bank settlements, expelling asylum seekers and judiciary policies. Its leaders have talked about deporting Arab (but not Jewish) Israelis who attack foot soldiers and politicians deemed disloyal to the state.
After 4 trips to the voting booth in less than 4 years, it’s no surprise that, prior to Israel’s November 1 elections, there was little movement in voter sentiment. Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and those who are horrified at this prospect. Polls consistently show that the electorate is coming out of a new stalemate.
However, there is one exception to this recreation of the last election, and that is that of the extreme right. Polls show the alliance known as religious Zionism, a grouping of devout Zionist parties, Otzma Yehudit and Noam, is poised to double the number of seats it controls in the Knesset from 120 members to 14 in this week’s election. This would make the alliance the third-largest bloc in the Knesset and guarantee it a variety of high-profile cabinet portfolios should Netanyahu’s bureaucracy be a devout right-wing government.
The concepts and attitudes that make up the platform of devout Zionism have long remained on the margins of Israeli politics, but have been rejected by the respectable right, represented by the likes of Netanyahu and former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. His platform includes things like annexing West Bank settlements, expelling asylum seekers and judiciary policies. Its leaders have talked about deporting Arab (but not Jewish) Israelis who attack foot soldiers and politicians deemed disloyal to the state.
The roots of devout Zionism lie in policies even more excessive than those it sells to the electorate today.
The roots of devout Zionism lie in policies even more excessive than those it sells to the electorate today. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the No. 1 in the alliance, began his career as a disciple of Rabbi Meir Kahane, and for years adorned his living room with a photo of Baruch Goldstein, a Kahane follower who massacred 29 Palestinians in a shooting in 1994. The Noam party is blatantly homophobic. As the alliance grew stronger, he tried to polish his rough edges, but never gave them up.
Thus, the politicization of the judicial formula and Netanyahu’s rescue from the thieves charges he faces lately are presented as reforms aimed at avoiding judicial excesses. Preserving “family values” is a friendly way of signaling hostility toward LGBT people, a problematic position for Netanyahu and the more moderate right that likes to burnish Israel’s democratic credentials by emphasizing how socially progressive the country is. for Arab citizens. His interest in the rights of the accused and in preventing police abuses is to protect Jewish extremists from the law.
It is tempting to compare the rise of devout Zionism in Israel with trends in Europe and the United States, but that would be a mistake.
What has led to far-right and populism in the West is a subject of much debate, yet Maximum would agree that immigration, emerging crime and the disappearance of economic opportunity, as well as skyrocketing inflation and distrust of the leaders of the classic status quo. , everyone has played a role. role.
Israel does not face these problems. It receives relatively few asylum seekers because the government’s draconian policies deter them from seeking entry into the country. Crime has increased, but only in Arab communities, which has little effect on Jews who support the far right. The economy has experienced exceptionally strong expansion for almost every two decades. Unemployment is near record lows, the tech sector is booming, and inflation is contained relative to the U. S. USA and Europe.
As elsewhere in the West, distrust of institutions such as the media, the Knesset, and the military (but less so in the courts, curiously) has grown in Israel. Political discourse is cruder and less compromising, partly because of Netanyahu’s never-ending strategy of delegitimizing the media and the left, and partly because of the rise of social media and the diminishing strength of the media.
That said, however, none of this has disturbed Israeli politics as much as elsewhere. So while Israel’s proportional representation formula gives it enough opportunities to capitalize on the votes of marginalized people, Israel’s far right is far from having accumulated the kind of strength that its peers in Europe possess. Assuming the polls are correct, devout Zionism will get 12% of the Knesset, an unprecedented but small percentage compared to the 20. 6% captured through the Sweden Democrats or the 35% that the Brothers of Italy and the League won in the Italian elections in September.
There is a crisis of status quo in Israel, but it is a crisis confined to the political right.
The outcome of the last election, in March 2021, traumatized right-wing voters. Desperate to return to force after a stalled vote, Netanyahu quietly began talks to form a coalition government with the Joint List, also known as Ra’am, an Arab-Israeli party. It failed only because the leader of the Religious Zionist Party, Bezalel Smotrich, rejected the idea. But Bennett formed a government with Ra’am’s support, committing the double sin in the eyes of the right to associate with an Arab party and the left.
Netanyahu has been viewed with some suspicion by the right. He is considered a pragmatist motivated by national security rather than a devout faith. His willingness to consider partnering with Ra’am to form a government was too much. Indeed, Netanyahu would possibly have made matters worse for himself by attacking Bennett so vehemently over the next year for recruiting “supporters of terrorism” to form a government, just as Netanyahu himself had tried to do. To the right, Bennett was an even greater disappointment.
He had long identified himself as a true right-wing guy who would make sure the unreliable Netanyahu did not betray the settlers; for example, promising to annex a domination of the West Bank as part of former US President Donald Trump’s “deal of the century”, only to quietly abandon the plan and rebuild formal relations with the UAE.
Since then, the two men have paid a heavy price for their flirtation with an Arab party. Bennett left politics and his Yamina political alliance disappeared. Ayelet Shaked, Israel’s interior minister and Bennett’s No. 2, could not get rid of the deal with Ra’am. , even though she was a reluctant wife from the beginning. Netanyahu survived, but failed to attract Yamina’s voters. His Likud party has been squandering since the fall of Bennett’s government in June, while devout Zionism is winning Array.
Many right-wing voters, especially devout ones, have found themselves homeless and have leaned toward devout Zionism, even if they necessarily endorse its entire extremist agenda. settlements or making deals with Ra’am.
There is a racist component to devout Zionism. Its core believers are intolerant, not only of Arabs, but also of left-wing Jews, LGBT people, and non-observers.
To be sure, there is a racist component to the rise of devout Zionism. Its core of believers, which represents part of its existing electoral force, is intolerant, not only of Arabs, but also of left-wing Jews, other LGBT and non-LGBT people. Observers
But the rest of the alliance’s supporters – those who joined it for lack of greater selection – cannot claim to be free of racist attitudes either. The year of Bennett’s rule in power, which Ra’am remained a constructive member of the coalition, deserves to have begun to replace attitudes about the role of Israel’s Arab minority in government and society. The fact that he did not do so shows a basic distrust of Arabs in the component of many Jewish Israelis, who are not quite in a position to settle for them as full members of Israeli society.
Many will point to the intercommunal violence that swept Israel’s combined Jewish and Arab cities in May 2021 over persistent mistrust. For Israeli Jews, the sudden spike in violence came as a shock. Israeli Arabs still suffer severe discrimination, but in recent years they have noticed it. integrate into Israeli society, as evidenced by Ra’am’s willingness to join the government. The government has pledged billions of dollars for housing, infrastructure and facilities in Arab communities.
But today, more Israeli Jews are telling pollsters that they, Jews and Arabs, deserve to live in separate communities than before the violence; Fewer say that an Arab who identifies as Palestinian can be an unwavering Israeli citizen. These attitudes make it less difficult to live with the most inordinate racism of devout Zionism – or, more precisely, its Jewish supremacy – or forget it as nothing. more than a tactical move.
Ironically, the electorate that has veered into devout Zionism would likely be counting on Netanyahu’s pragmatism and mythical political cunning to keep Smotrich and Ben-Gvir at bay, but they shouldn’t bet on it. , and will have influence over Netanyahu, not the other way around.
David E. Rosenberg is business editor and columnist for the English edition of Haaretz and Israel’s Technology Economy.
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