By Uri Weltmann
NEW YORK: “The reckless approval of an agreement with the Hamas terror organization . . . represents a disgraceful surrender. This deal forfeits the IDF’s [Israel Defense Forces] hard-won achievements in the war, involves withdrawing forces from Gaza, and halts the fighting in a manner that capitulates to Hamas,” read the statement by Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Jewish Power party, as he resigned from the post of minister of national security earlier this week.
The much anticipated cease-fire agreement was received with celebrations among the many displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who expect to return to what is left of their homes after the extensive devastation inflicted by the indiscriminate bombing of the Israeli army. With the dire lack of food, medications, and basic supplies, and with civil infrastructures (schools, hospitals, universities) in shatters, Gazans hope the cease-fire could allow the alleviation of the humanitarian catastrophe that’s been their daily reality.
Tears of joy were also shed within Israel, where a majority supports the cease-fire agreement and welcomes the release of the hostages held in captivity by Hamas militants. Hamas released three civilians on Sunday; thirty more hostages — women, children, and injured — are due to be released within the first phase of the agreement, which will be drawn out over forty-two days. Their release will coincide with the release of almost two thousand Palestinian prisoners held inside Israeli jails, many of whom are so-called administrative detainees, who never faced trial and never had charges pressed against them.
Not only the celebrations in Gaza but also the relief felt by many Israelis were anathema to the Jewish Power ministers, who walked out on Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet. With their Members of Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) no longer committed to vote according to the discipline of the coalition’s whip, a political crisis seems to be developing. However, rather than threatening to dislodge Netanyahu from his position as prime minister, the crisis has played out in a somewhat more controlled manner.
For the last few weeks, as rumours started to trickle that the negotiations between Israel and Hamas were underway, mediated primarily by Egypt and Qatar, Ben-Gvir’s party reiterated its hard-line stance against stopping the war in Gaza. Its position was seconded by another coalition partner, the Religious Zionist Party, headed by Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich. However, that party has thus far chosen not to withdraw from Netanyahu’s government, citing assurances given to it by the prime minister that fighting will resume in a month and a half.
How should we understand these reactionary parties, whose opposition to the cease-fire agreement will inform the dynamics of Israeli politics, and indeed the stability of the entire region, going forward?
When, in the 1980s, the ultrareactionary rabbi Meir Kahane ran for the Knesset, observers considered his emergence to be a fringe phenomenon. After his party won a single seat in the 1984 elections, racist statements became a common feature of his four-year tenure in the Knesset; most notably, he continually insisted on the forced transfer of Arab Palestinians away from the territories controlled by Israel.
As a legislator, he attempted to introduce racial segregation laws, including, for example, establishing different beaches for Jews and non-Jews, and proscribing romantic and sexual relationships between Jews and non-Jews, which he hoped to make punishable by prison terms. So vile was his racism that even his fellow right-wing members of the Knesset ostracized him, including the ruling Likud party, who used to leave the Knesset chamber whenever he was giving speeches. In 1988, he was disqualified from standing for reelection by the Central Elections Committee on the grounds that his party platform constituted incitement for racism.
Having become a hotbed of violent settler activity, Kahane’s party and its successor organization were designated terrorist organizations by Israel and the United States and declared illegal in 1994. Kahanism survived on the outskirts of Israeli politics, as a marginalized tendency of a few fanatic zealots, never numbering more than a few hundred, and not wielding actual political power; to the media, they were more of a freak show than a serious political force.
But as the Israeli political establishment plunged into crisis — with five consecutive elections between 2019 and 2022 — Kahanism reentered the political arena. Ben-Gvir, who joined Kahane’s movement as a teenager, led his party, called Jewish Power, in two consecutive elections, in 2019 and 2020, winning no seats but proving to be a headache for the more mainstream right-wing parties.
His breakthrough came when he negotiated a deal with the Religious Zionist Party headed by Smotrich. This is the main political party that represents the interests of the West Bank settlers, espousing nationalist-conservative rhetoric, informed by deep racism, hostility to democratic norms and values, and messianic fantasies. The electoral pact between the two parties sprung Ben-Gvir out of marginality, as he won a single Knesset seat in the 2021 elections, being a candidate on the Religious Zionist slate.
As a very media savvy Member of Knesset, known for his provocative appearances, he soon became a favourite for news programs. One newspaper headline exclaimed that “The broadcast media is addicted to Itamar Ben-Gvir,” citing a statistic that in the last week of March 2022, although merely a backbencher in the Opposition, Ben-Gvir was the second most covered politician in radio and television, surpassed only by the then prime minister Naftali Bennett. (IPA Service)
Courtesy: Jacobin
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