The Most Extreme: How Does Washington Deal With the Prospective Right-Wing Israeli Government?

The agreements reached by the Israeli Prime Minister-designate, Benjamin Netanyahu, with the leaders of the Zionist extremists herald an unprecedented tension between the occupation and the Palestinians.

On November 25, 2022, Netanyahu agreed to give the leader of the far-right Jewish Power, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security portfolio in the government he is working to form.

The Israeli Broadcasting Authority (official) said that the Likud party, led by Netanyahu, signed an agreement with the Jewish Power party regarding the extension of positions in the next government.

“According to the agreement, the Jewish Power will take over the Ministry of National Security with broad authorities, including the green police, the land enforcement authority, and the border police in the West Bank,” it added.

“We have taken an important step to form a complete right-wing government,” Ben-Gvir said in a statement.

According to the agreement, Knesset member from the Jewish Power, Yitzhak Wasserlauf, will receive the Negev and Galilee portfolio, while the party’s deputy, Amihai Eliyahu, will get the heritage portfolio, which will also include the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Despite the progress with the Jewish Power party, the negotiations between the Likud and religious Zionism led by Bezalel Smotrich are still facing obstacles, as the party’s leader demanded the army portfolio.

On November 13, Israeli President Isaac Herzog tasked Netanyahu with forming a government. In order to gain the confidence of the Knesset, he needs at least 61 votes out of the 120 Knesset seats.

 

Extremist Government

With this extremist formation represented by the fascist religious salvation movement, which believes that the descent of the awaited savior and the achievement of Jewish salvation depends on the destruction of al-Aqsa Mosque and the building of the Temple on its ruins, there are expectations that the situation will flare up in Jerusalem and the entire Palestinian territories in the West Bank and Gaza.

With this ministerial composition, Netanyahu’s alliance with the far-right and religious Zionism showed the extent to which Israeli society’s extremism has reached religious obsession and hostility to Arabs and Muslims.

Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of religious Zionism, is more radical than ISIS because he believes that the Palestinians must be treated according to the advisory opinion of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, which gives them a choice between expulsion, working as servants of the Jews, or killing, according to observers.

The leader of Kahanism, Ben-Gvir, will allow the occupation soldiers to shoot directly at the Palestinians, and he will form his own army in the West Bank.

Border guards in the West Bank are also under his command, which gives him the ability to use force and impose retaliatory measures against Palestinians.

In contrast to ISIS, which the world treats as a terrorist formation, and which launched an international war to uproot its mini-state in Syria and Iraq, it is possible that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are ministers in a government recognized by the world, and they carry out these crimes in their official capacity.

The extremist Jewish religious movement won 40 seats in the new Knesset out of 120, and at least 10-12 of its ministers are preparing to occupy important cabinet seats in Netanyahu’s new government, according to Hebrew newspapers.

Among these extremist ministers, four rabbis will hold important ministerial portfolios in the next Netanyahu government—they are: Rabbi Aryeh Deri, leader of the Shas movement, who will assume the ministries of interior and health, in addition to granting the party three other ministries, including the Ministry of Religious Affairs, according to the Israeli TV Channel 12 on November 21.

Rabbi Yitzhak Goldknopf, leader of United Torah Judaism, will take over the Housing Ministry, and Knesset member Meir Porush from the same fascist bloc, as Deputy Minister for Jerusalem Affairs, and two rabbis from the Shas movement will take over the ministries of religions and the Negev and Galilee.

Netanyahu had reached an agreement with Ben-Gvir to assume the portfolio of internal national security, as well as granting his party the Ministry of the Negev and the Galilee, enabling him to implement his plan to Judaize the two regions, according to what was published by i24news on November 25.

It is expected that the leader of the racist Noam party, Avi Maoz, will be appointed to the position of minister, as he is demanding the Ministry of Education.

Smotrich continued to demand security portfolios in Netanyahu’s government in order to guarantee protection for his fascist movement during their attack on the Palestinians or to actually begin plans to change the status quo in al-Aqsa Mosque in preparation for the construction of the Temple.

Because of the Likud’s pressure to take this position and the fear of the collapse of the alliance with Netanyahu, Smotrich decided to be satisfied with the finance portfolio, but he stipulated the transfer of powers related to the West Bank from the Ministry of Defense to his Ministry (Finance), according to what was reported by Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper on November 22, 2022.

Surprisingly, Netanyahu did what Smotrich wanted and agreed to give him the responsibility of supervising settlements in the West Bank, according to Haaretz newspaper on November 23.

The newspaper stated that the authority of the Civil Administration in the occupied territories is being transferred from the Ministry of the Army to the Finance, thus becoming under the direct supervision of the leader of Religious Zionism and becoming responsible for supervising settlement in the lands of the West Bank.

Haaretz expects that Smotrich will take the initiative to annex Area C, which constitutes more than 60% of the West Bank (in contravention of the 1993 Oslo Accords), and then legalize dozens of random outposts established by settlers on private Palestinian land.

In its November 25 editorial, Haaretz again warned that Smotrich would implement his party’s program: Increasing the number of settlements and settlers in the West Bank and increasing the demolition of Palestinian homes.

 

Fascist Control

These results illustrate the extent of the control of these fascists over the entire Zionist state. The parliamentary representation of these groups has grown since 2003 until they reached 18 deputies in the 2021 elections, representing 15% of the Knesset, while now they occupy about 30% of the seats.

The expert on Israeli affairs, Dr. Saleh al-Naami, says that “the parties that participate in the next Israeli government present populist demands that are deep in their extremism, such as: Executing resistance fighters, expanding the expulsion of Palestinians, and turning the lives of prisoners in occupation prisons into hell.”

“The Jewish religious right in Israel is determined to exploit its victory in the elections to achieve the main goals of trying to resolve the conflict with the Palestinian people, demolishing the foundations of the internal political system, and establishing an alternative system that paves the way for the emergence of the Jewish state,” he confirms.

However, he believes that this will be in the interest of Palestine and its cause, as the strategy of the religious right will lead to fueling the conflict and not resolving it, expecting that it will expand the scope of the resistance and unify its arenas, it will end the Palestinian debate about the mechanisms of dealing with the occupation, and it will hinder the path of normalization.

It will also promote the formulation of a new political system that upholds the provisions of the Torah, and the internal polarization between the religious and the secular and will perpetuate the growing societal rift within Israel in a way that reduces its ability to face the challenges of the conflict it is striving to fuel, according to Dr. al-Naami.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s allies believe that now is the best time ever to completely kill the idea of a Palestinian state, expand in building settlements, Judaize occupied Jerusalem, demolish al-Aqsa Mosque and build the Temple.

They count on the fact that the majority of Arab countries are either ruled by regimes loyal to “Israel” or owe it to them to remain in power or are preoccupied with their internal crises, and some of them are disintegrated or threatened by civil wars, such as Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and Lebanon.

The world has also been preoccupied with the consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine since February 2022 and the escalating confrontation between the United States and both Russia and China.

During a television interview with the Hebrew TV Channel 2 after his arrival to the Knesset for the first time in 2016, the extremist Smotrich threatened, saying: “We will demolish al-Aqsa and build the Temple immediately.”

“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people, and the Third Temple will be built within years (i.e., on the ruins of al-Aqsa Mosque after its demolition). Baruch Goldstein (the perpetrator of the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre) is not a terrorist,” he continued.

On May 29, 2019, the Hebrew newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, asked Smotrich about his plan regarding the Gaza Strip, and he said: “I will occupy it again, and I will disarm all the armed forces there.”

“I will open its doors to mass immigration, with Europe and other countries, and there will be no Arab national entity in the Land of Israel between Jordan and the sea,” he added.

 

Israeli Deception

The Palestinian writer Soliman Abo Irshed confirmed, in an article on the Arab 48 website on November 17, that “liberal Zionism succeeded for many years in deceiving the separation between a material reality of apartheid and a conventional world of security legitimacy, but the effect of this magic has run out, and there is no longer room for denying the reality of apartheid.”

He believed that “the results of the recent elections are an expression of the desire of Israeli voters to narrow the gap between discourse and reality on the ground, in the sense that the Israelis said that they are tired of covering up and that they want to use more convincing terms that reflect their lives.”

The article quoted a professor of law at the University of Haifa, Itamar Mann, as saying: “Security goals are not often achieved, and that is why the Israeli voters wanted to open up their apartheid.”

During his visit to Ramallah on July 14, 2022, as part of a foreign tour, Palestinians raised banners in the face of US President Joe Biden, reminding him that the Palestinians live in the reality of apartheid.

According to Israeli reports, the Likud is now reluctant to annex the West Bank to avoid confrontation with the Biden administration because imposing sovereignty is a red line for Americans.

In a meaningful move, perhaps directed at the religious fascists in Netanyahu’s government, Biden’s administration decided to appoint a special representative for Palestinian affairs, according to what was reported by the American Axios website on November 22, 2022.

A senior State Department official said that the Biden administration had informed Congress that it had appointed Hadi Amr as a special representative for Palestinian affairs, which is an indication of an upgrade in its relations with the Palestinian Authority.

Observers believe that Netanyahu, known for his political shrewdness, is trying to reduce the encroachment of his extremist allies on power, at least until the upcoming US presidential elections in 2024, in the hope of losing Biden and the return of his extremist Republican ally, Donald Trump, to power.

When he was prime minister, Netanyahu committed several times to the annexation steps, and set two and a half years ago an official date for this step, but in the end, he preferred, at the request of the US administration, to support the Abraham Accords with Arab countries at the expense of promoting this step.

The Haaretz editorial of November 2, 2022, tried to soften this fascism by saying, "Israel is now standing on the cusp of an authoritarian religious revolution led by the far-right, whose aim is to destroy the foundations of democracy on which it was built.”

American writer Thomas Friedman spoke in an article in the New York Times on November 4, 2022, about the end of “Israel,” which we knew under the rule of an alliance of ultra-Orthodox leaders, ultra-nationalist politicians, and racist, anti-Arab Jewish extremists.

There are now about 60-70% of Israeli Jews who lean towards fascist right-wing political ideas now, compared to 29% in 1986, according to an analysis conducted by the Israeli Institute for Democracy and published by the Israeli i24news TV on August 29, 2022.

This Israeli militancy towards the Palestinians, as Thomas Friedman describes it in his article, is now escalating through these religious fascist parties and is turning into a kind of ultra-radical nationalism, which rejects any acceptance of a Palestinian state and views all Palestinians as terrorists.

Rabbi Rick Jacobs, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in the United States, warned in an interview with Yedioth Ahronoth on November 23, 2022, that “the inclusion of fascist ministers in the Netanyahu government could harm Israel and threaten to deepen the rift between it and the United States.”

“The appointment of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich as ministers in Netanyahu’s government threatens relations with the American administration that protects Israel,” he added.