Will the ultra-right seize control of religious Zionism in Israel?
With Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked having left HaBayit HaYehudi to start a new party, ultra-right parties are angling to take control of Israel's religious Zionist movement.
HaBayit HaYehudi was formed in 2008 through a political alliance of the National Religious Party (Mafdal) and the National Union Party. The arrangement was not beneficial until the arrival of Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, when under their leadership HaBayit HaYehudi, known in English as the Jewish Home party, won 12 Knesset seats in the 2012 elections.
On Dec. 29, 2018, Bennett and Shaked announced that they were leaving HaBayit HaYehudi to establish another party, the New Right. Their departure left HaBayit HaYehudi a flock without a shepherd and at risk of falling off Israel's political map. This uncertainty has led parties on the far right of the map to move to fill the space traditionally occupied by the religious Zionist movement.
Mafdal, the basis for HaBayit HaYehudi, had at times sat in coalitions with left-wing parties, such as Labor and Meretz (in Ehud Barak’s government, 1999-2000), yet it was clearly identified with the settlement enterprise, the leadership of the settler movement, and the Yesha Council, representing the settlements. The party took care to align itself with official state institutions, which is why its leadership could prevent the struggle over the 2005 disengagement from Gaza from totally deteriorating. Many activists left the party after the disengagement and threw their support behind parties further to the right, including parties calling for the annexation of the occupied territories and expulsion of the Palestinians.
Bennett had begun his political career in 2005 as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff. He then joined HaBayit HaYehudi in 2012 and represented it in two Netanyahu governments. Mazal Mualem has explained in Al-Monitor that one of the reasons behind Bennett's surprise resignation from HaBayit HaYehudi was to free himself from the control of rabbis affiliated with the religious Zionist movement. As Bennett argued, they made it impossible for him to move forward with the kind of political maneuvering that he believes would expand the party and transform it into a leading force among the broader Israeli public.
