In the face of the tight electoral race predicted by the polls, Tuesday’s elections in Israel confirm that former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regains power with the solid support of religious Zionism. far-right populist, racist and anti-Arab party which constitutes itself as a third political force and which can shake the democratic foundations of the country.
The results, with 86% of the votes counted, consolidate a record of 82 seats for right-wing partiesregardless of whether they are on the pro-Nentayahu side – Likud (32), religious Zionism (14) and ultra-Orthodox Shas (11) and United Torah Judaism (8) – or from the anti-Netanyahu bloc, which hosts the center-right coalition National Unity (12) and the secular ultra-nationalists of Israel Our Home (5).
Therefore, the return to power of the former president is almost inevitable and would only be hampered by a sensational – and unlikely – change in the trend in the recount of the fewer than 700,000 votes yet to be counted.
Netanyahu would then regain the throne he had lost in mid-2021, at the hands of a coalition of parties from across the political spectrum, and would along with its far-right and ultra-Orthodox partners.
“Israel has undergone an ideological change. The center of the political arc has long since shifted to the right. The traditional left or right split, based primarily on its position on the Palestinian question or the two-state solutionit no longer exists, “says Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI) researcher Ofer Kenig about the country’s right-wing change.
A long-standing right turn
The pro-Bibi bloc, as its supporters call it, has a comfortable ruling majority of 65 seats in a Knesset (Israel’s parliament) of 120.
The opposite side, led by the current interim prime minister, centrist Yair Lapid, is far away with 50 deputies, weighed down by the debacle of its left-wing partners, who they get the worst result in their history.
“Now the divide is between those who support an Israel as a liberal democracy or those who support a Jewish, populist and nationalist state. The liberal right is getting smaller and smaller in Israel in favor of the orthodox and conservative religious right“, clarifies Kenig.
This shift to the right began a long time ago, during Netanyahu’s last long term (2009-2021), but this Tuesday’s elections – the fifth in Israel in less than four years – confirmed this trend and encouraged the extreme religious right and the Jewish supremacist, whose epitome is the extremist Itamar Ben Gvir, “number two” on the list but shining star of this election campaign and magnet that attracts the vote of the youngest.
Politicians, activists, analysts and the country’s mainstream media of all beliefs have been alarming for weeks about the implications of including religious Zionism in government and threat to Israeli democracyjudging by the incendiary statements and provocative acts of their representatives, in particular Ben Gvir.
religious Zionism
Both the leader of religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, and Ben Gvir himself have openly expressed their desire to use the government and the legislature to stop judicial decisions they don’t like – for example, those who block the construction of settlements – take the wings of the Supreme Court, even eliminate crimes such as fraud or breach of trust from the penal code, two of the three for which Netanyahu is accused in his trial for corruption.
“they want hijack justice, the Supreme Court and democratic rules“Warns Gideon Rahat, a political scientist at the Hebrew University, who considers it” ridiculous “that they have opened a debate on whether or not to have a Supreme Court in Israel, which is” fundamental in any liberal democracy “.
In addition to undermining the judiciary, religious Zionism – which has its electoral base among settlers and Orthodox Jews – claims openly racist positionsanti-Arab and homophobic, it is inspired by biblical texts to justify the colonization of the occupied territories and supports a strong repression against the Palestinians.
Specifically, Ben Gvir, convicted in the past for inciting racism, called for the expulsion of Arabs “disloyal” to Israel. Although in the past he has even talked about killing them, when he was a young disciple of extremist Meir Kahane, whose training Kach was declared a terrorist by Israel and the United States, and admirer of Baruch Goldstein, another far-right who killed 29 Palestinian faithful in the massacre of the Tomb of the Patriarchs of Hebron in 1994.
Despite this controversial record, the leap from being a minority force a few years ago, to the third most voted, leaves religious Zionism prominent place in a future Netanyahu government.
Aware of their power, they have already asked for the Defense or Justice portfolio for Smotrich and that of the Public Security, which controls the Police, for Ben Gvir. Both are settlers living in settlements in the occupied West Bank.
“Once you legitimize racism, nationalism and supremacism, you can never go back,” complains analyst Gayil Talshir, who blames Netanyahu for allowing this movement to rise. activates polarization which benefited him politically when he was head of government.
“He created the phenomenon but now he won’t be able to control it,” he says of the strong influence that religious Zionism will have on Netanyahu’s next executive.
For Talshir, these elections force the question: “Which Israel do we want? A Jewish nationalist state or a democracy?” The polls have spoken and, for now, lean towards the first option.
Source: EFE
CB
Source: Clarin
