Perspective 89. Israeli Extremists: A Real Threat?

You were previously told in these missives that in the 2022 Israeli election there was no shift in basic voting patterns. Right and religious parties have together won around 60 percent of Knesset seats since the turn of the century; nothing new there. But did the election result, nevertheless, generate a new threat to Israeli democracy and regional stability?

Yes. As noted, there was an important shift within the Israeli right: the Religious Zionists, an ally of Bibi Netanyahu, emerged as the second largest party in the new government coalition. And almost half of the Religious Zionist seats (6 of 14) are held by extreme Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) members. Previously Jewish Power had never won more than one Knesset seat.

In perspective, Jewish Power’s origins go back to the rabid Rabbi Meir Kahane, who preached the expulsion of Arabs from Eretz Yisrael. The current party leader, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is an unrepentant Kahanist who for years had a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Muslim worshippers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994, hanging in his home. He is on record as favoring the deportation of “disloyal” Arabs, a sure step to civil war.

Ben-Gvir also advocates Israel taking over total control of the Temple Mount, a move that would ignite over one billion Muslims around the world against the state of Israel (the Temple Mount being the third holiest site in Islam, after Mecca and Medina). Not even the most hawkish Israeli government seriously considered such a harebrained idea – up to now.

Yet Ben-Gvir is slated to head an expanded Ministry of National Security, with control of the Border Police between Israel and the West Bank. It's hard to find a suitable metaphor for this zany situation. “Putting a fox in charge of the henhouse” is too mild. In Tom Friedman’s phrase, it is like distributing matches and gasoline to pyromaniacs.

For that matter Bezalel Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionist party to which Jewish Power linked itself for the election, is hardly a paragon of tolerance. Smotrich advocates a shoot-to-kill policy against Palestinian protestors, the annexation of most or all of the West Bank, and the imposition of the Torah as the law of Israel. Quite in line with his other capitulations, Netanyahu has accordingly given him control of the office in the Defense Ministry that administers the West Bank.

But Jewish Power is still the cutting edge of this extremist surge. To see its dimensions, I recently took a dive into the pages of Hakol Hayehudi (The Jewish Voice), a West Bank publication identified with the movement. Imagine my surprise to find an attack on, believe it or not, none other than Netanyahu, who had dared to promise publicly that the Talmud would not become the law of Israel. “Netanyahu,” wrote Rabbi Yehudah Epstein, “we have news for you – the Talmud will indeed become the law of the state.”

Rabbi Epstein calls out Bibi for trying to gain legitimacy “from Israel-haters in the world and from Hellenizers here in Israel.” Interesting choice of words. Harking back in timely fashion, the derogatory term of “Hellenizers” evokes those who tried to replace Judaism with foreign (Greek) culture in the time of the Maccabees – the origin of Hanukah. So much for the intervening two thousand years.

The good rabbi admonishes Netanyahu that “there is no law for our nation outside the Holy Torah,” and that it is inevitable that [Torah and Talmud] will be recognized as superior to “the goyish laws that breakers of the covenant force upon us today.”

Another contributor to The Jewish Voice leaves no doubt about his position on the Palestinian front: “It’s either us (the Jews) or them (the Arabs)”. Boaz Shapira, after a long recitation of Arab violence, writes that it is urgent “to employ an iron hand toward Arabs who threaten our authority in our land and deny our sovereignty in it.” These measures, in his eyes, must be “as harsh, relentless, and heavy-handed as necessary.”

And the new Minister of National Security, on the record as favoring the deportation of Arabs who show themselves to be “enemies of Israel,” will be in a position to carry out such measures – at a time when the security situation in the West Bank is already, as Friedman observes, unraveling. Already Israeli military units have to shoot their way into and out of towns there in order to make arrests. With Ben-Gvir on hand to ignite the flames, can a third intifada be far behind? Will it be the worst yet? We will see.