The President of Israel, Isaac Herzog, made an official visit to Washington last week, which he took advantage of to calm the nervousness unleashed in the Biden Administration before a possible executive that integrates the Israeli extreme right. Before the fifth elections in three years called for this Tuesday, the leader of the opposition, Beniamin Netanyahu (Likud), encouraged the fusion of a joint candidacy of radical factions. If he achieves a majority to form a coalition –61 seats out of 120–, Bibi has already advanced that the controversial deputy Itamar Ben Gvir is fit to occupy a relevant ministry.
In the White House, this scenario is not exciting. Despite the fact that the US-Israeli alliance is unbreakable, senior Democratic officials have been warning for weeks of the damage that a government with openly racist politicians would cause. Robert Menéndez, director of the US Senate foreign relations committee, expressed in early October his “serious concern regarding a coalition with polarizing individuals like Ben Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich”, leaders of Religious Zionism. “It would erode bipartisan support from Washington, which has been a mainstay of the US-Israeli bilateral relationship,” he warned.
Netanyahu, who already had a tense relationship due to ideological differences with the Barack Obama administration, remained implacable. “We are a democracy, we will decide who will form the next government. I know how to stand our ground and say no when necessary,” he advanced. Bibi referred to her ally Ben Gvir as a man who “loves the State of Israel and defends its soldiers”, and protested against hearing Menéndez condemn Yair Lapid for aligning himself with “Mansour Abbas (Ra’am) and the Brotherhood”. Muslims, who deny Israel’s right to exist and honor murderers of Jews.” With his support for the “government of change” and his departure from the Arab “Unified List,” Abbas reiterated his recognition of Israel as the Jewish national home.
Ben Gvir was sentenced by the justice system in 2007 for racist incitement. From his party, they defend the creation of a state committee to organize the expulsion of Arab “terrorists” and leftist “traitors”. Despite sweetening his message to win supporters – he points to a third force with 13 deputies – the Israeli police chief accused him of inflaming the worst wave of violence between Arabs and Jews in recent history, unleashed during the war in Gaza in May 2021.
Religious Zionism includes openly homophobic figures, guided by rabbis who defend sexual reorientation therapies. In the US, the second-largest Jewish country in the world (around six million), Reform and Progressive communities have historically been predominant. If the forecasts are confirmed, the Jewish extreme right would enjoy great influence in a government led by Netanyahu, especially on the fragile red line that separates religion and state.
US diplomatic sources told the Axios portal that the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, “expressed our anxiety to Herzog”, as well as the problems they would have in cooperating with certain ministers. For his part, the Israeli president recalled the complex process that will culminate in the formation of the next government. The leader with the most votes is not automatically the one in charge of trying to form a coalition. It will be Herzog himself who assigns a candidate, according to the side that is best positioned to try to obtain a minimum of 61 favorable votes in the Knesset. Herzog asked for “calm and not to draw conclusions after the first exit polls. It is important that the democratic process takes its course.”
Herzog insisted on the different rhetoric that is used in the electoral campaign regarding government action. “I ask that you judge more adequately what you perceive now, because it does not always suppose what will finally end up happening. Every country has problems in its political system, you have already experienced it in the US too,” Herzog clarified before Blinken.
