Find out who are Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, radicals who will form government with Netanyahu in Israel

When then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, 19-year-old Itamar Ben-Gvir celebrated. He was part — like the assassin, Yigal Amir — of a group of far-right radicals who hated the idea of ​​peace agreements with the Palestinians, like those in Oslo, which Rabin had signed three years earlier.

Exactly 27 years later, Ben-Gvir, now 46, celebrates again. He was the phenomenon of this week’s Israel parliamentary election along with his coalition partner, Bezalel Smotrich. The ultranationalist union will have 14 seats out of the Knesset’s 120, after being chosen by 10.8% of Israeli voters (516,000 votes), making it the third largest caucus.

The coalition officially adopted the name of Religious Zionism, Smotrich’s party that allied with Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Force).

The biggest surprise came because until very recently, both were considered too radical, marginalized by the political mainstream. His xenophobic and racist ideas and speeches shocked, but were not taken very seriously. Now, however, that rhetoric seems to be swallowed up by more and more Israeli voters, particularly younger, religious and open to violent strategies — and the comparison to far-right leaders in other countries is no coincidence.

Another explanation for the rise of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich is the chess played by the country’s most skilled politician, former (and likely future) prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. It was he who sponsored the union of the two, who lived at odds amid the dispute of egos and ideological frills, for these elections. The reason: the former prime minister knew that he would only be able to form a government if he strengthened the right – including religious and ultranationalist parties -, as he had fought with almost all the leaders of the center and left. He was a checkmate.

Separately, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich might not have reached 14 seats. But together they formed a momentum that attracted even Netanyahu’s Likud voters. The coalition’s strength must lead Netanyahu to grant them important spaces in management, such as the defense and internal security ministries, in a nightmare for the center, the left and Palestinian activists; on Thursday, sirens sounded in Israel after reports of gunfire in the Gaza Strip.

Itamar Ben-Gvir is a lawyer who specializes in defending radical Jewish activists, particularly in cases linked to clashes with Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. He himself has been indicted several times for inciting racism.

The politician was born in Mevasseret Zion, a suburb of Jerusalem, into a secular family. But as a teenager, he joined far-right religious groups amid the First Intifada (1987-1990), a violent Palestinian popular uprising. At that time, he began to follow the ideas of Rabbi Meir Kahana, an ultranationalist accused of terrorism in the US and Israel who was elected to the Knesset in 1984, but was boycotted and banned from Parliament. His party, the Kach, in which Ben-Gvir militated, was declared illegal.

The rabbi, who was murdered in New York in 1990 by an Egyptian-American, supported the use of violence against what he saw as enemies of the Jewish people. But if in the 1980s his “Kahanism” was an aberration, 2022 shows he has become more palatable. “Kahana was right” is graffiti visible on walls, overpasses and buildings across the country.

In this context, Ben-Gvir — who had at home a photo of Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Muslims in a mosque in the West Bank in 1994 — experienced a rise that has now become meteoric. His ideas modernized “Kahanism”. Among them is that it is necessary to expel Arab citizens who do not pledge allegiance to Israel’s national flag from the country.

His intention has always been to join the Knesset, which he has tried several times for Força Judaica since 2019. He won a seat in the 2021 election, in a coalition of far-right religious that won six seats. In two years, his popularity only increased, especially as he began to use social media more skillfully to spread his ideas and to appear in the media in protests and demonstrations against Palestinians and the Arab minority.

In Religious Zionism, a coalition now formed, however, number one will be Bezalel Smotrich, 42, a far-right lawyer who was once part of the Yamina party of former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. A little less controversial — and less charismatic — than Ben-Gvir, he also harbors ultranationalist and anti-LGBTQIA+ ideas.

Smotrich was born in the Golan Heights, a territory annexed by Israel after the Six-Day War (1967). But he grew up in Beit El, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, in an ultra-Orthodox family. In 2005, at the age of 25, he was arrested while protesting against the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip promoted by then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The following year, he took part in protests against the Gay Pride Parade in Jerusalem, which he called abominable.

His political trajectory began in 2015, when he was elected parliamentarian by the Casa Judaica coalition. One of his platforms is the adoption of the Old Testament as a source for the legal system. He has also made prejudiced statements, defending that construction companies should not sell apartments to Arabs and, saying he is against same-sex marriage, referred to LGBT people as abnormal.

Netanyahu must rely on them to form his next government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history.

On Thursday, the current prime minister, Yair Lapid, conceded defeat in the election. The final figures in the poll indicate that the bloc of forces linked to Netanyahu will have 64 seats in the Knesset – 32 for Likud, 18 for ultra-Orthodox Shas and Torah Judaism and 14 for Religious Zionism. Lapid and allies will have 51 seats, and Arab independents 5.