EXTREMIST FAR-RIGHT PARTIES IN ISRAEL CHEER VOTE RESULTS
Netanyahu likely to welcome them into his new government
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s once and likely future prime minister, was forced to wait Wednesday after taking an almost insurmountable lead in Israel’s election, as officials delayed calling the election until all votes were counted.
But regardless of Netanyahu’s fate, his far-right allies were already celebrating. The election result places their once-marginal groups and extreme ideologies at the heart of Israel’s discourse and political system.
An alliance of religious ultranationalist parties, Jewish Power and Religious Zionism, will form the thirdlargest bloc in the next Israeli parliament, giving the far right newfound power, influence and respectability. Jewish Power’s ideological antecedent was once shunned by Netanyahu’s party, Likud. Today, Netanyahu is almost certain to welcome its lawmakers into his government.
Domestically, analysts fear that would set the stage for spiraling interethnic tensions and a potential constitutional crisis. Internationally, it would risk straining Israel’s relations with its supporters and benefactors, like the United States, or new Arab partners like the United Arab Emirates. And it would challenge any remaining
pretense that Israel seeks to preserve the possibility of a Palestinian state.
In the occupied West Bank, the alliance wants to accelerate Jewish settlement and remove any semblance of Palestinian autonomy. In Israel, it wants to overhaul the justice system, give politicians greater control over judicial appointments, and weaken checks and balances on lawmakers.
“They want to change the system itself,” said Tzipi Livni, a former Israeli justice minister, in an interview. “Change the nature of Israeli democracy.”
The leader of Religious Zionism, Bezalel Smotrich, has described himself as a “proud homophobe,” said
Jewish property developers should not have to sell homes to Arabs and supported segregated maternity wards for Arab and Jewish women.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Jewish Power’s leader, seeks to grant legal immunity to Israeli soldiers who shoot Palestinians and deport rival lawmakers he accuses of terrorism. Until recently, he hung a portrait in his home of Baruch Goldstein, who shot dead 29 Palestinians in a West Bank mosque in 1994.
As a teenager he was barred from serving in the Israeli army because he was considered a security threat. He was subsequently convicted several times, including for incitement and support
for a terrorist group. Recently, he described Meir Kahane, an extremist rabbi who wanted to strip Palestinian Israelis of their citizenship, as his “hero.”
“The time has come for us to be the landlords of our country,” Ben-Gvir said in a speech hours after the election.
In a brief statement before the election, Ben-Gvir said he had “no problem, of course, with the minorities here” — only with “whoever is a terrorist, whoever commits terror.” He has also sought to distance himself from Kahane, describing himself as his own man.