HEBRON, West Bank – The Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, home to a few hundred Orthodox Jews living among some 200,000 Palestinians, has long been considered a bastion of oppression. far-right settlement movement – on the fringes of Israeli society.
But after Israeli elections this month, a coalition of far-right parties, led by the religious Zionism party, reflecting the views of radical settlers, has become third largest political force in Israel. The coalition, which includes the ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party, obtained more than 88% of the vote from Hebron settlers.
The alliance is now ready to become a mainstay of the alliance brought together by right-wing prime minister-designateBenjamin Netanyahu – who received formal mandate on Sunday to form the next government – raised concerns among secular Israelis that religious and political extremism was infiltrating the mainstream.
Zionist advocates hope the alliance will use its leverage to strengthen their idea of a Jewish state by promoting conservative family values, preserving religious Sabbath and the application of Jewish sovereignty in areas of the West Bank, Palestinian territory. claims of a future state and Zionism considers it part of Greater Israel and is mentioned by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria.
Hananiya Shimon, 39, a father of seven who lives in one of the residential areas dotted around Hebron’s Tomb, said: “The Torah of Israel, the people of Israel and the land of Israel – those are three flags of Religious Revivalism. The Patriarchs, the disputed holy site is revered by Jews and Muslims, who call it the Ibrahimi Mosque. This area is completely controlled by the Israeli Army.
“During the 2,000 years of exile,” Mr. Shimon said, “religion was what kept us together.”
The Religious Zionist Party, led by Bezalel Smotrich, worked in the same group as Jewish power under extreme nationalism, led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Noam, a small far-right Orthodox party that opposes LGBTQ rights. That partnership was designed by Mr. Netanyahu to maximize the bloc’s electoral potential in his comeback drive, and represents the toughest political embodiment of religious Zionists.
Tehila Friedman, a modern Orthodox lawyer and former member of Congress, said there has long been an internal war within Israel’s religious Jewish community. “That war has more radical moderates, who want to blend their Jewish traditions with humanist values to counter other harsh, dissenting voices who see democracy,” she said. humanism is too advanced. Hardliners want to follow the strictest interpretation of Jewish law in state-administered matters.
A more moderate party representing the nation’s religious settlers and the public, the Jewish House, was wiped out this time, for having lost the trust of the constituency after breaking the word promises they made in the final election, in 2021, and join forces in a government with leftists and an Arab party. Increase of Arab terrorism and related to ethnicity and the criminal violence of the past 18 months has made many Israelis fear for their personal security and has also been an impetus for hardliners.
Given the lack of an alternative, Friedman said, “More moderate forces will align with more extreme forces.”
Zionist national religious camps have also gradually become a larger part of the Israeli mainstream in recent years with a concerted effort to integrate and have more voices in the future of Israel. Israel.
Religious Zionists have reached the highest levels of the police and security establishment, have made up a disproportionate number of graduates of the army’s officer schools, have strengthen their presence in Israel’s mixed Jewish-Arab cities and has developed an increasingly influential voice in Israeli media and culture.
Everything you need to know about Israel’s latest election
The country held its fifth election in less than four years on November 1.
“We are a Jewish nation and what is important is Conservatism,” said Rivka Ben Avraham, a teacher and mother of 10 volunteering at Warm Corner, a stopover for soldiers nearby. Religious Judaism is within the government and operates because of its Jewish character. Her settlement was in the Etzion Block, north of Hebron. “At the same time, we are a democratic country,” she said, “and religious Zionists participate in every aspect of life here.”
Religious Zionists include people of varying degrees of religion and different shades of politics that are predominantly right-wing. Estimates of the size of the community range from 10 percent to 30 percent of Israel’s population. Recently survey for the Jewish Policy Institute, a research group based in Jerusalem, found that about 15% of men identified themselves as Jews who strictly adhered to and supported the idea of a Great Israel. .
Religious Zionism dates back to decades before the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. One of its founders, Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook, saw the Messiah’s call in the making. established a Jewish state and adopted the socialist, secular pioneers who arrived in the early 20th century as its builders.
The National Religious Party, founded in 1956 to unite Zionist voters by religion, has sat in many governments and focused primarily on matters of religion and state. After Israel conquered the Biblical heartland of the West Bank, East Jerusalem with its holy sites and other territories in the 1967 war, religious Zionists took the lead in this effort. settlers in the newly acquired lands, seeing themselves as the next generation of Zionists.
Rabbi Kook’s son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, gave an emotional speech a few weeks before the war, lamenting the fact that Hebron, Jericho, and other Biblical sites on the West Bank were not located under Jewish control. After the victory and Israel’s occupation of those areas, some of his followers considered his words a prophecy and the ideological settlement movement took on a Messianic tone.
The ultimate goal of Mr. Smotrich, leader of the religious Zionist party, was to impose complete Jewish sovereignty over the entire territory, and ultimately for Israel to be governed by law. Torah. He declined to identify the deadly attacks on Palestinians as Jewish terrorism.
Rabbi Yaakov Medan, a Zionist religious leader at Har Etzion Yeshiva, a seminary in Alon Shvut’s Etzion Block settlement, was involved in the settlement project early on. But he represents a voice of moderation and tolerance. In the decade following the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish extremist, Rabbi Medan worked on a covenant to co-exist between religious and secular Jews in Israel.
This latest election – Israel’s fifth in less than four years – has underscored divisions within the nation’s religious camp and a rift with the more liberal half of the country.
Rabbi Medan said he respects Mr Smotrich, who was a former minister, but says he has differences with his religious Zionist style. Rabbi Medan said Ben-Gvir’s Jewish power was “not religious Zionism,” but “a protest party against lack of governance.” Protest parties often fail, he added.
Rabbi Medan said he wants to give up some power by letting a more left-leaning party join the emerging coalition, even though he is not a leftist, adding, “I’m willing to pay the price it’s for the sake of national unity.”
Other religious Zionists have accepted a partnership with Mr. Ben-Gvir, a resident of Hebron with a history of provocation and racism who until recently hung a portrait in his home for Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli-American doctor who massacred 29 Muslims. prayed at the city’s holy site in 1994.
Now that Jewish settlement has penetrated deep into the West Bank, Smotrich’s muscular form of Zionism seems to have restored his vision of total change. the country of Israel.
He is pushing for an overhaul of the justice system to reduce scrutiny of politicians and give Parliament more power, which critics say would transform the country’s liberal democracy. Israel into the rule of the Jewish majority.
He also wants to limit the scope of Israel’s Repatriation Law, which grants automatic citizenship to foreign Jews, as well as their descendants, who may not qualify as Jews under the law. Jewish. And he asked the Israeli professional football leagues to stop some of the games that still take place on the Sabbath.
Unlike the ultra-Orthodox parties that focus more on building walls and securing a budget to protect the Haredi minority’s way of life, said Uri Keidar, executive director of Be Free Israel, an organization that promotes self-government. due to religion and pluralism, said Zionism “aims to change the DNA of Israeli society, and not just prevent Israeli society from changing them. “
“We are getting to a dangerous point,” Mr. Keidar said, “but we will fight it and we will win.
Itamar Leshem, 39, who lives in Hebron and teaches at a yeshiva in the adjoining Kiryat Arba settlement, said he hopes religious Zionism will infuse the curriculum of his secular schools the state of Israel more traditionally Jewish and abolished the outgoing government’s efforts to liberalize the conversion to Judaism and promote gay rights.
“Our values have been trampled on,” Mr. Leshem said, adding that he felt the government that was about to leave office was not nationalist enough. “The people of Israel have spoken.”
