Israel's religious right thrives on political unrest

Israel's April elections revolved around the pending indictments against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While the centrist and leftist political parties committed not to join a Netanyahu-led government and attacked various proposed immunity laws designed to protect him, the right-wing parties including even ultra-Orthodox Shas have closed ranks around his leadership and proudly declared that they will back Netanyahu.

Now it seems that the focus of the September elections will no longer be the suspicions of corruption surrounding Netanyahu but rather the threat to Israel’s eroding democracy and essence — whether it will continue to be a democratic, secular state or a Torah-based halachic one governed by rabbis and religious rules.

Avigdor Liberman, the head of the secular right-wing Yisrael Beitenu who insisted on passage of his blueprint for ultra-Orthodox conscription as a condition for joining a Netanyahu government, fired the opening shot of this clash. Liberman, whose proposed legislation passed its first reading in the Knesset in July 2018, struck out often against the ultra-Orthodox in recent months, but this week he realized they were not the only political bloc in Israel espousing a halachic state. They are not the only ones to threaten the secular lifestyle of the majority of Israelis. The statement by Knesset member Bezalel Smotrich indicated clearly that part of the religious Zionist population share the same ambitions of a Jewish-law state vision.

During the four-week tenure of the 21st Knesset, Smotrich, chair of the National Union Party and second on the Knesset list of the United Right, staked out a claim as one of the leaders of religious Zionism. The doctrine he espoused proves that the historic, moderate National Religious Party is defunct. A nationalist ultra-Orthodox stream has risen on its ruins, having much in common with the religious vision of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.