Throughout history, secular Zionist parties have had limited success in achieving sufficient electoral victories to gain a substantial share of the country’s political decision-making.
The staggering 17 seats won by Israel’s radical religious party Shas in the 1999 elections marked a turning point in the history of these parties. Its ideological roots go back to Abraham Yitzhak Kuk and his son Zvi Yehuda Hakohen.
Israeli historian Ilan Pape has called the Kuk family’s ideological influence a “fusion of arbitrary messianism and violence.”
Over the years, these religious parties have struggled on several fronts. These include an inability to unite party members, an inability to appeal to mainstream Israeli society, and an inability to strike a balance between messianic political discourse and language that is not necessarily action. Israel’s Western allies are hopeful.
Much of the financial and political support for Israeli extremists comes from the United States and, to a lesser extent, other European countries, but the U.S. government has been clear about its public perception of religious extremism in Israel.
In 2004, the United States banned the Kach party, which can be seen as a modern manifestation of the Kuks and Israel’s earlier religious Zionist ideologues.
In fact, the group’s founder, Meir Kahane, was assassinated in November 1990 while the extremist rabbi responsible for much violence against innocent Palestinians over the years was giving another hateful speech in Manhattan. Ta.
Kahane’s death was widely criticized by his supporters, including Baruch Goldstein, the American doctor who shot and killed dozens of Palestinian Muslim worshipers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron on February 25, 1994. This was just the beginning of the violence.
The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during protests against the massacre is nearly as many as those killed by Goldstein earlier in the day, and while tragic, the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces during protests against the massacre is almost the same as those killed by Goldstein earlier in the day, and the state of Israel, It perfectly represents the relationship with the violent colonizers who operate as part of the A larger national agenda.
That massacre marked a turning point in the history of religious Zionism. Rather than serving as an opportunity to marginalize the growing influence of supposedly more liberal Zionists, they increased their power and ultimately their political influence within the State of Israel.
Goldstein himself became a hero, and his tomb in Kiryat Arba, Israel’s most radical illegal settlement in the West Bank, is now a popular shrine and place of pilgrimage for thousands of Israelis. There is.
What is particularly impressive is that Goldstein’s shrine is built across from Kahane Memorial Park. This shows clear ideological ties between these individuals, groups, and funders.
However, in recent years, the traditional role played by Israel’s religious Zionists has begun to change, with Itamar Ben Gvir being elected to the Israeli parliament in 2021 and ultimately as Minister of National Security in December 2022. led to the role of
Ben Gvir is a Kahane follower. “It seems to me that Rabbi Kahane was ultimately about love: loving Israel without compromise, without considering anything else,” he said in November 2022.
However, unlike Kahane, Ben Gvir was not satisfied with the role of religious Zionists as cheerleaders for the settlement movement, the near-daily attacks on the al-Aqsa Mosque, and the occasional attack on Palestinians. He wanted to be at the center of political power in Israel.
It is an interesting debate whether Ben-Gvir achieved his position as a direct result of the success of the grassroots movement of Religious Zionism, or because the political situation in Israel itself changed in his favor.
But the truth may lie somewhere in between. The historic failure of Israel’s so-called political left, the Labor Party, has in recent years promoted a relatively unfamiliar phenomenon: a political centrism.
Meanwhile, Israel’s traditionally right-wing Likud party has been weakened by its failure to appeal to the growing younger base of Religious Zionism and a series of splits that occurred as a result of the dissolution of Ariel Sharon’s party. It became. He joined the party in 2005 and founded Kadima. This party has long been disbanded.
To survive, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu redefined his party into its most radical version in history and began attracting religious Zionists in hopes of bridging the rift created by infighting within Likud.
In doing so, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave religious Zionists a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Immediately after Operation Al-Aqsa on October 7, and in the early days of the massacre of Israelis in Gaza, Ben Gvir launched the National Guard, which he had tried to form before the war but failed.
Thanks to Ben Gvir, Israel is now a country with “private militias,” in the words of opposition leader Yair. Ben Gvir announced that by March 19th, 100,000 gun licenses had been handed over to his supporters.
It was also during this period that the United States began to impose “sanctions” on several individuals associated with the Israeli settler extremist movement, given the extensive damage that had been caused and the large-scale violence that was likely to occur. Then, it was a light slap. The next few months and years.
Unlike Prime Minister Netanyahu, Prime Minister Ben Gvir’s thoughts are not limited to a desire to hold a specific position within the government. Israeli religious extremists are calling for a fundamental and irreversible shift in Israeli politics.
Relatively recent efforts to change the relationship between the judicial and executive branches of government were as important to these extremists as they were to Netanyahu himself.
But while the latter supports such efforts to avoid legal liability, Ben Gvir supporters have another reason in mind. They want to be able to control the government and military without accountability or oversight.
Religious Zionists in Israel are fighting a long war independent of any particular election, individual, or government coalition. They are redefining the nation and its ideology. And they are winning.
Needless to say, Ben Gvir and his threat to overthrow the Netanyahu coalition government are the main drivers of the genocide in Gaza.
If Meir Kahane were still alive, he would have been proud of his followers. The ideology of radical rabbis, once marginalized and hated, is now the bedrock of Israeli politics.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author, and editor of the Palestine Chronicle — www.ramzybaroud.net.
