Alwaght- Benjamin Netanyahu’s overwhelming victory in recent elections after two years of political crisis that led to four general elections in addition to bringing him to power—while nobody could imagine he would survive the corruption charges and other legal cases active against him— secured for far-right a victory unprecedented in two decades. For the first time in the Israel regime's history, the upcoming government will very likely be formed by predominantly religious parties, and 33 seats in the expected 64-seat coalition would be of the Religious Zionist Party, Shas, and the United Torah Judaism, which would have two seats more than Netanyahu’s Likud.
This win for the far-right parties that allows them form a government is not a product of several-month election campaigning. A look at the election results leads us to the notion that far-right gradually overshadowed the political and social developments in the occupied territories, making its ideology gain acceptance among the public. Its ideologies with orthodox interpretation of religious Zionism invite for unification of the Israeli nation-state based on the united Jewish race, sidelining the Arabs in the occupied territories as allies to Israel’s enemies, militarizing the security, and perpetuating settlement projects.
This comes while with the growth of these tendencies, the center and leftist parties have been pushed to isolation in the elections. For example, Meretz, a left-wing party, failed to gain any seats in recent elections and its three-decade representation in the Knesset ended.
The Labor, once a ruling party, has been on the decline since the 2009 election, winning just four seats this time, just a little bit over the 3.25 percent threshold.
The veteran centerist Kadima party is another example. The party that was in power in 2006 under the leadership of Ehud Olmert and won the majority of the seats in the 2009 elections, split in the 2013 elections and barely maintained its existence, but in the next elections in 2015, it did not even participate.
Perhaps, the fact that the Israeli society is moving to rightism is the same thing that made Netanyahu optimistic about an unbelievable comeback despite being in a political and legal abyss. But where should we seek the roots and grounds of the rightist tendencies in the Israeli society?
We can look at the key factors of rightism in the election slogans of the victorious parties in recent weeks. Slogans like “we restore security”, “we decrease the living costs”, “we widen the peace scope”, and “we restore Israel's position as an emerging power among other nations” were main slogans of the far-right parties.
Security for the occupied territories and the Zionist and Jewish community in general is a demand and a historical deficiency, either because of the narratives of the Zionist ideology about the historical destiny of the Jewish people, which is propagated as full of fear, displacement, and death, or because of historical isolation after various wars after its establishment, or because of the historical conflict with the Palestinians or the growing military and political power of the Palestinian resistance, which has greatly undermined the Israeli security factor.
In the meantime, the right-wing parties always put the issue of security at the center of their rhetoric and political goals, and at the same time link the Tel Aviv’s failures in facing security challenges to other important domestic and foreign issues, such as settlement construction, peace negotiations with the Palestinians, the gas agreement with Lebanon, and economic issues.
For example, these parties have already presented plans to undo the reforms implemented by Bennett-Lapid's government and make new changes to strengthen Orthodox's control over the judiciary. One of the demands of the right-wing parties is to prevent Palestinian citizens from having any right to file a claim for the restoration of their rights regarding the destruction of their homes by municipalities and also their displacement, or to block the prosecution of soldiers who commit crimes.
Expanding settlement projects until full occupation of the West Bank and Judization of the Al-Quds (Jerusalem), and expulsion of the Palestinians from the occupied territories are solutions these parties prescribe for final end to the security challenges. Ben-Gvir, who is now an ally of Netanyahu, is a man with racism records. During clashes in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Al-Quds in mid-October, he brandished a hand gun and shouted at the Palestinians “we're the landlords here, remember that, I am your landlord.” In recent days, he reportedly said he is interested in serving as home security minister to leave a considerable impact on the Arabs living in the occupied territories.
While the Israeli security situation being extremely fragile with the uprising of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the rise of resistance groups in this region and also the possibility of the intifada spreading deep into the lands of 1948, namely the first Palestinian lands occupied by the Jews upon formation of the so-called Jewish state, the far-right policies which are based on adopting an iron fist policy and not making any territorial concessions will be welcomed by the settlers.
Another issue is the rightist demand for full Judization of the Al-Quds. They demand freedom of Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount as the most sacred place of the Jews. So far, Jewish visitors performed controlled rituals and prayers at the site to avoid clashes with the Muslims, but now that the far-right holds the power, the Israelis will demand freedom of movement of the Jews in the site which is aimed at escalating the tensions for further repression of the Palestinians in the West Bank.
Economic issues are also among the drivers of the recent changes brought about by the Israeli elections. The inflation in June reached its highest levels, 5.2 percent, in 14 years. Israelis, like others around the world, are feeling the financial pressures from the war in Ukraine and other global economic factors. “Freeing Israel from the crisis" was the title of the economic plan presented on August 3 by Netanyahu. Netanyahu, who had used the sharp rise in the cost of living in recent months to attack Yair Lapid's government, announced an alternative. He highlighted his record as minister of economy in 2003, the year he managed to save Israel from a major economic crisis. According to media reports, the price of gasoline has reached its historical record of 8.25 shekels per liter in the past months. Last month, Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics announced that housing prices continue to rally to unprecedented levels and jumped 15.9 percent compared to last year.
The economic tensions are at a time when the right-wing Israelis blame the Lapid government for failing to protect the regime's interests in gas disputes with Lebanon. A US-brokered maritime deal signed between Israel and Lebanon on October 27 ended a territorial dispute in the Eastern Mediterranean and established an agreement on the demarcation lines for oil and gas industry development in the region.
This agreement was signed despite Netanyahu’s criticism and insistence that it should be first ratified by the Knesset. During the election campaigns, the far-right parties called for canceling the agreement.
In general, it can be concluded that the Israeli far-right grew out of home and foreign security, economic, political, and social crises and itself works like a cycle for regeneration of these crises.
