Itamar Ben-Gvir is poised to take a prominent position in the next Israeli government after this week’s election saw his far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party emerge with record support. In the United States, which remains Israel’s most important international ally, Ben-Gvir’s rise has already raised concerns, including from some of the country’s staunchest supporters in the US Congress. While gains by Israel’s far-right won’t shake US-Israel relations, analysts said the election results will make it harder for liberal American supporters of Israel to continue defending the country. “The inclusion of far-right Jewish overlords in Israel’s governing coalition will add to the ongoing narrative shift that makes it increasingly difficult for people to continue to justify Israel’s war crimes and human rights abuses,” said Tariq Kenney-Shawa , USA. political contributor to Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank.
Shift to the right
Ben-Gvir’s party and its religious Zionist allies are set to become the third-largest bloc in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, positioning them to play a decisive role in a right-wing coalition likely to see former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu return to power . Ben-Gvir, who claims to have softened his anti-Palestinian stance in recent years, defended himself against criticism from a US lawmaker before the election, saying Israel’s enemies were trying to “smear” him by calling him and the party of racists. “The truth is that we are anti-racists – we are fighting against the racist anti-Semitism that is being fueled within the borders of our country,” he said in a statement last month, according to the Times of Israel. Palestinian rights advocates said Ben-Gvir’s racist policies are not new, however, pointing to successive Israeli governments that have pursued policies that oppress Palestinians with full American support. “It’s a repeat of the same story we’ve seen before,” said Yousef Munayyer, senior fellow at the Washington DC Arab Center. “Every few elections, there’s a new figure in this group who makes his political career out of being so openly fascist and so openly racist against the Palestinians.” Before Ben-Gvir, Israeli politicians – including former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman – used anti-Palestinian rhetoric to advance their careers. And they are now considered part of the mainstream. “The center of gravity in Israeli politics today is much further to the right than it was 20 years ago,” Munayyer said. “The fascists of the past now seem more centrist in comparison – when in fact the whole system is built around racism towards Arabs and Palestinians in the country.” Good call just now with Benjamin @Netanyahu. I congratulated him on his victory and told him I looked forward to working together to maintain the unbreakable bond. 🇺🇸 🤝🇮🇱 — Ambassador Tom Nides (@USAmbIsrael) November 3, 2022 But the rise of the Israeli far-right this time has come as US Democrats, including President Joe Biden, are sounding the alarm about the threat posed by far-right movements in the US to democracy. “Regardless of the shape of the Israeli coalition and government, our relationship will be strong and enduring,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Monday ahead of the Israeli election. Two days later, as it became clear that Israel’s far right would be in the incoming government, Price said the US hoped “all Israeli government officials will continue to share the values of an open, democratic society, including tolerance and respect for all citizens society, especially for minority groups”.
“Moment of Reckoning”
However, no substantial change in US support for Israel is expected. Biden, a self-proclaimed Zionist committed to putting human rights at the center of US foreign policy, has often emphasized that the US commitment to Israel is “ironclad” and the bipartisan consensus on unconditional US military aid to Israel has remained strong. This is despite leading human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, accusing Israel of imposing apartheid on the Palestinians. Beth Miller, political director at JVP Action, the political arm of Jewish Voice for Peace, a Jewish-American organization that supports Palestinian rights, said while the right-wing victory in Israel is linked to the growing prominence of far-right movements around the world, it represents an “escalation” in an already unjust “apartheid” system. “Israel must not be separated from the rise of far-right authoritarianism and fascism around the world,” Miller told Al Jazeera. “At the same time, the US has a long history of always turning its head the other way whenever the Israeli government commits systemic human rights abuses.” While the official US approach to Israel will likely be business as usual, where analysts and advocates expected the change was in the ongoing debate about Israel in the country. Miller said the far-right victory is a “revelatory moment” for Israel’s long-standing policy of “Jewish supremacy,” in which Jews in Israeli-controlled territories have more rights than non-Jews, namely the Palestinians. “Now, that means we are in a moment of reckoning here in the US,” he told Al Jazeera. For his part, Munayer noted that Netanyahu will likely have a cohesive right-wing majority in the Knesset after years of fragile governing coalitions, which will enable an Israeli “agenda that is anti-Palestinian on steroids.” “It will create flash points. it’s going to create controversy and it’s going to create those moments of extreme difficulty for people who want to defend Israel here in the United States,” he said, adding that some of Israel’s “reflexive defenders” are already trying to spin the election results as something good.
US-Israel ties ‘sacred’: AIPAC
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobby group, for example, said Israel’s elections – the fifth in four years – should be celebrated as a democratic exercise. “We must remind everyone that the relationship between these two allies is sacred and must transcend the views of any political, political party or ideology,” AIPAC President Betsy Burns Korn said in an email to supporters Wednesday. Critics of Israel have rejected the claim that Israel is a democracy because millions of Palestinians living under Israeli control in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem cannot vote in Israeli elections. J Street, a liberal Jewish-American group that describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace, called for a reassessment of the US position on unconditional support for any Israeli government. “J Street has long emphasized that a relationship based on a ‘right or wrong’ approach to Israel that tolerates unchallenged settlements, discrimination and endless occupation serves no one’s interests – not the United States’, not its own state Israel and not the Jewish people,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday. “Under the looming far-right Israeli government that may form, this business-as-usual approach will be stretched to unsustainable limits.” As the debate over Israel looks set to intensify in Washington, critics have pointed out that the short-lived government of Prime Minister Yair Lapid, often described as centrist, also had anti-Palestinian policies. The outgoing coalition built Israeli settlements, authorized near-daily, deadly military raids in the West Bank and launched an unprovoked attack on Gaza in August that killed 16 children. “No matter who it is [prime minister] or win a majority in the Knesset, the Israeli leadership is committed to maintaining the occupation and continuing the Palestinian evacuation, albeit with slightly different tactics,” Al-Shabaka’s Kenney-Shawa told Al Jazeera in an email. “Their rhetoric and tactics may differ on the margins, but the strategy remains the same: entrenchment of military occupation and apartheid.”
