In early November of 2022, Israel’s electorate trudged back to the voting booths for the fifth time in less than four years, following the dissolution of an ideologically diverse coalition installed the year prior. After the smoke cleared, the conservative Likud party emerged victorious with a substantial Knesset majority and Benjamin Netanyahu was elected prime minister—again.
Netanyahu had served as Prime Minister for twelve years, during which he earned himself an impressive array of enemies. His time in office was the trademark for illiberalism, boasting a history of corruption, xenophobia, and racism. His policies and rhetoric fuelled a loathing that was once so ardent and ubiquitous that Israel’s polarized political scene united to oust him. Yet only a year and a handful of months later, Netanyahu is back.
Sworn in at the very end of last year, he began his tenure with what is possibly Israel’s most antidemocratic, extremist government yet. Far-right radicals who had been sequestered on the fringes of Israeli politics have now been drawn into the limelight, and dangerously so.
The obvious policy matter at risk is Palestine, as is the case with every Israeli election. Israel’s outgoing government represented a monumental and unprecedented move towards religious co-existence. It included the Arab party Ra’am and, with it, a glimmer of hope for pacified relations between Israel’s Jewish and Arab populations and, by extension, between Israel and Palestine. Due to discord within the government, however, this rosiness was short-lived.
The resulting election was essentially a referendum on the policy direction of Israel-Palestine relations. Would Israel’s Arab and Jewish populations continue to cooperate towards a mutually beneficial future, whatever that may look like, or would they remain staunch enemies? The latter seems to prevail with the return of Netanyahu.
His hard-line, blatantly anti-Palestine rhetoric offers a clue as to what can be expected from his government. Netanyahu’s previous stints have augmented Israeli control over Palestinian territories, increasing Israeli military presence in the West Bank and Gaza and depriving Palestinians of basic resources and liberties. He has no intention to waver on these stances. If anything, he will reinvigorate them with the backing of his coalition, which has explicitly named settlement expansion as a top priority.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, has been appointed National Security Minister after founding his policy platform on the full Israeli annexation of Palestine and the support of violent Israeli nationalism. His ascendance in Israeli politics will certainly not contribute to the bettering of conditions for Palestinians, much less a peaceful transition towards a two-state solution.
This past December, the Knesset passed a bill that places Ben-Gvir in charge of the Israeli Police. He is now empowered to outline police policy and direct the action of the police force, which was responsible for 224 Palestinian deaths in the West Bank in 2022 alone. Unfortunately, the numbers can only be expected to mount.
Much like Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir has spent years accumulating charges. He has an extensive history of endorsing extremist Jewish terrorism against Palestinians. And the bill’s amorphous parameters vest in Ben-Gvir the “authority…to outline general principles for action,” leaving ample room for him to implement flagrantly anti-Palestine police procedure.
Another far-right ultranationalist has been placed in a prominent role: the Religious Zionist party's Bezalel Smotrich is now Minister of Finance. This position grants him control over the daily lives of Palestinians in the West Bank from water access to home demolitions, as well as settlement construction.
Made evident by the victory of the Zionist coalition, the sweeping distaste for Netanyahu has faded and, in its place, the continued oppression of Palestinians is the new uniting feature of Israeli politics. The incoming government promises by its very composition to maintain a fierce, repressive grip on Palestine. Because the bloc has the absolute majority in Parliament, nothing stands in the way of an ultra-nationalist, ultra-conservative Israeli future.
Beyond the disconcerting policy direction for Palestine, Israel is backpedaling furiously away from democracy. The new coalition intends to put forward a series of illiberal reforms that would set Israel back by decades and turn it into a fascist, quasi-authoritarian state. Endemic corruption, an erosion of the separation of powers, and human rights violations, especially for the LGBTQ+ community and other minorities, are all on the horizon. Ben-Gvir has gone as far as ordering a police crackdown on anti-government protests, bridling a vital element of democracy.
The judiciary’s independence is on the brink of survival. Although Netanyahu was once a fervent guardian of Israel’s judicial system, his coalition now intends to pass a bill that will allow the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to override the High Court. The court is of exceptional importance in a system such as Israel’s, in which there is neither a written constitution nor a bicameral system. Such a measure would, thus, be devastating to democracy as it would markedly undermine the separation of powers. With a muted supreme court, Netanyahu and his coalition would rule unrestrained.
A key aspect to remember is that the Knesset is technically a democratically elected institution (the legitimacy of this democracy is a separate issue). Netanyahu’s prime ministry and his coalition are not anomalies, but expressions of the will of the Israeli people and reflections of a disturbing trend in Israeli politics. A weighty 62% of Israel’s population identifies as right-wing, compared to 46% in 2019. What is possibly more unsettling is that younger Israelis identify as right-wing more frequently than do older Israelis.
Ben-Gvir has enraptured the younger generations of relatively liberal Tel Aviv, instilling the doctrine of white Jewish supremacy in Israel's future. Netanyahu has spent the past few decades of his career legitimizing right-wing extremism. Xenophobia and illiberalism are not archaic features of Israeli politics, they are contemporary ones. And they are becoming increasingly rampant.
This election’s outcome marks the start of a troubling chapter in Israel’s history. Gone is the Israel we once knew, founded on principles of democracy and liberalism. With each passing election, Israel leans further into the clutches of far-right fanatics.
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