Members of the new majority government include those who identify as "proudly homophobic," who want to see Jewish law enforced, who want troops to be able to kill Palestinians, and who want to see the West Bank annexed.
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| [Benjamin Netanyahu] |
16 months after being ousted from office, Benjamin Netanyahu has triumphed in Israeli elections and is poised to return to the helm of the country. But the actual beneficiaries in this election cycle are the religious right's zealots, who will make up the vast majority. As a whole, the coalition won 64 seats in the Knesset, a slim majority compared to the total of 120 available seats. The primary party in the coalition is the Likud, which received 31 seats in the House of Representatives election, although the Religious Zionist Party (14), Shas (11), and United Torah Judaism (7 combined) will give the alliance 33 seats in total. And they intend to make their presence known.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the ultra-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Force), who campaigned in an electoral coalition with the Religious Zionists led by Bezalel Smotrich, seems to be the true victor as Israel continues to move to the right. While the latter was technically the cartel's head, it was Ben-Gvir who was the charismatic frontrunner who won over voters. Both are notorious for their radical and extreme views. Smotrich, who described himself as "proudly homophobic," stated that Jewish real estate developers shouldn't sell homes to Arabs and that he supported separating maternity wards for Arab and Jewish women. Ben-Gvir, at 46 years old, has taken far more radical stances than this before.
In 1995, he was caught on tape with a symbol ripped off the automobile of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who had signed the Oslo Accords with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. His words at the moment were, "Just as we have arrived to this symbol, we will come to Rabin." Although Ben-Gvir had nothing to do with Rabin's assassination, his actions did little to ease tensions in the country.
The leader of Otzma Yehudit used to be a supporter of the terrorist organization Kach and a fan of the group's founder, Rabbi Meir Kahane, an Israeli-American extremist who was killed in 1990 and advocated for policies including the denial of citizenship to Arab Israelis, the segregation of public spaces, and the outlawing of interracial marriage. Ben-Gvir has a history of convictions for inciting racism and aiding a terrorist organization, and he is a regular at memorial gatherings honoring Kahane. His studio used to showcase a photograph of Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 murdered 29 Palestinians in a mosque in the West Bank.
While he and his fans often chanted "death to the Arabs" at rallies, he now encourages them to instead yell "death to the terrorists," despite the fact that "terrorist" is often used by right-wing extremists as a synonym for "Arab." Ben-Givr has gained notoriety for his controversial views and frequent appearances in the media. His trips to Sheikh Jarrah, a Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem where many Arabs were being forced to leave their homes, in May 2021 stoked tensions in the region, leading to an 11-day war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He went back to the area this month and urged police to shoot at stone-throwing Palestinians. He even brandished a revolver and said, "Friends, they are hurling stones at us, kill them."
As part of his territorially maximalist stance, Ben Gvir and his allies want to absorb the West Bank into Israel without granting equal rights or citizenship to the millions of Palestinians who live there. They also want to assert Israeli control over the Spanata of the mosques, one of Islam's holiest sites where the current status quo prevents the prayer of non-Muslims. Despite being barred from serving in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) as a youth because of his extreme views, the politician has already stated his intention to seek appointment to the post of Public Security Minister. This position oversees the work of the police.
The threat of a theocracy is also becoming a topic of discussion inside the nation. Bezalel Smotrich, the head of Religious Zionism, has long proclaimed his desire for Israel to become a "halachic state," or a state ruled by Jewish law. Even if Netanyahu is eager to let his friends weaken Israel's primary secular bastions—his judges—Al Likud, the coalition's secular party, will be entrusted with stemming this tendency. The judiciary has long been an important check on government's ability to use force to promote any religion, having struck down restrictive laws and opened the door to more tolerant interpretations of others.
However, the secular Netanyahu is interested in being tried in three counts of corruption, so now all majority parties are talking about the necessity to drastically curtail judicial powers and avoid the participation of the court. "In spite of the complexity, the authority of the courts was one of the main factors that maintained separation between church and state. Now, however, there's worry that this may be diminished "Itim Orthodox Religious Rights Group Head Rabbi Seth Farber Told the Times of Israel.
Because the blatantly homophobic Noam party, which is on the list of Religious Zionists, might possibly join the administration, there is also a danger of a retreat of LGBT + rights. It's not out of the question that the next administration would reverse the Minister of Health's prohibition on gay conversion therapy and his authorization of gay people to give blood.