The (Temporary) Triumph of the Israeli Far-Right

After decades of feeling restrained, the most radical elements in Israeli politics have been let loose. For now, their tactics seem to have been vindicated.

Dec 24, 2024

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It is time for progressive forces, especially those of us involved in policy toward the Middle East, to reckon with what has happened not only in Israel and Palestine, but across the Middle East. We have expressed our outrage about Israeli actions, and we have done what we can to try to address them.

Now, we must grapple with the grim reality: Israel, indeed the farthest right wing of Israel has put their agenda into motion in a way they have not been able to do before, and they have thus far been wildly successful by their own measures.

By no means does this mean the struggle is over or lost. On the contrary, it is more imperative than ever that the fight continue, because the assertion of the far-right Israeli agenda is only one part of the advancement of far-right movements across the globe, in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Israel is only one part of that, but, as it has been for years, it is at the vanguard.

The Israeli far-right believed itself marginalized in policy

While the far-right in Israel has always had disproportionate power to its numbers, it was also a movement that was consistently frustrated by what it perceived as a lack of conviction from the various Israeli governments and restraints being placed upon Israel’s freedom of action by the international community, especially the United States.

Such complaints may sound odd to anyone who recognizes the lavish support the US has granted Israel for decades and the massive shield the U.S. has put up around Israel ensuring it will face no consequences for its actions. But the Israeli far-right wanted more.

For years, there was a movement in Israel and among its supporters outside to both increase U.S.-Israeli cooperation and coordination, and simultaneously wean Israel off of U.S. military aid. The point wasn’t to stop getting the money, per se, it was about taking away the perceived leverage military aid gave Washington over Israeli actions.

As it became clearer over the years how difficult it would be politically to halt the sale of arms to Israel, this movement tapered off, and, in recent years, it was proven to be wholly unnecessary.

Successive American administrations became less and less disposed to restrain Israel, even in the slightest manner. Barack Obama, despite the often insulting rhetoric against him by Israel and its supporters, nearly became the very first United States president to support no UN Security Council resolutions critical of Israel in his term. Only by withholding the U.S. veto on a weak resolution condemning Israeli settlement expansion in his last month on the job did he avoid this distinction.

In bygone days, even presidents considered heavily pro-Israel like George W. Bush would occasionally use their leverage to convince Israel to do something it didn’t want to do. Bush did that in 2003 when it withheld loan guarantees to convince Israel to alter the route of its separation barrier in the West Bank and to delay some settlement expansion.

These were not major policy breaks by any means, but they drew a line in the sand, and made Israel aware that the United States was the senior partner in their relationship. As a result, when the U.S. was serious about Israel changing its course, it didn’t generally require such overt threats. Israel knew when the U.S. was serious, knew what the potential consequences were, and it backed off. On the other hand, the U.S. generally allowed Israel a great deal of freedom of action, and only told it to back off when it felt the stability of the region was in danger of being severely degraded. It was always based on American concerns, which did not include the slightest concern for Palestinian lives.

But the Israeli far right wanted complete freedom of action to smash Israel’s opponents. They did not trust in any agreement with Arab states, or anyone else for that matter. Some of them were motivated by dreams of a biblical Greater Israel that stretched all the way into Iraq, Egypt, Türkiye, and even Saudi Arabia. Others were less grandiose in their ambition for actual expansion of borders but wanted to establish Israeli dominance over the Middle East directly, through massive violence and using Israel’s superior force.

Both strains of the far right found common cause with Christians who see Islam as a global threat, see the “clash of civilizations” between “east and west” as fundamental to the modern geo-political map, or who see these issues through the lens of a war between “western” and “oriental” (their polite term for backward or even barbaric) values.

Donald Trump’s presidency deepened these ties. For the first time, Christian Zionists and supporters of the Jewish settler movement were the key base for a Republican president and at the very heart of policymaking, rather than the neoconservatives from the Bush years, or the conservative Realists who tended to more prominent in prior Republican administrations since Richard Nixon.

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Joe Biden shifts the goalposts of U.S. policy

It was Joe Biden who really changed the game and opened the door for the Israeli far right.

Even before the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, the Biden administration had gone out of its way to benefit Israel, despite the fact that he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disliked each other considerably.

The presence of far-right figures like Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir in the Netanyahu government gave the U.S. scapegoats to blame and attack for Israel’s extremism, even while policy remain unchanged.

In dealing with other administrations, Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu, had learned to gradually push the envelope and see how far the United States would allow it to go. With Biden, Netanyahu found there was no limit. Biden might make a show of things like refusing to invite Netanyahu to the White House (mostly over concerns about Netanyahu’s attempt to destroy the Israeli legal system, not over anything to do with the Palestinians), but there would be no material or policy consequences for anything Israel did.

Then October 7 happened.

Joe Biden was the worst possible president for that moment. He is a very weak leader who shies away from even the mildest political fights, and this combines with his fanatical zeal for Israel—a fanaticism of hate for Palestinians so severe he once even shocked Menachem Begin with his callous disregard for the lives of Palestinian children—to lead him to allow a slaughter in Gaza that even for Israel was unprecedented.

When political pressure mounted for the United States to stop enabling genocide, Biden responded with empty rhetoric and, with one minor exception, no pause in the rapid flow of armaments to Israel.

The result of this vicious policy from Biden has been the opportunity, in the wake of the October 7 attack, for the Israeli far-right to finally put their preferred strategy to the test. Israel made it clear after the attack that they were going to finally eliminate Gaza, not just Hamas.

The targeting of the civilian population in Gaza started immediately and has continued without pause ever since. The aim was never to destroy Hamas, which so many experts, including Israelis, said was impossible. No, the goal in Gaza was to eliminate the territory as a focal point of the Palestinian national consciousness, and as a site of resistance to Israeli dominance.

Long before there was a Hamas, Gaza was the cradle of Palestinian nationalist and independent ideologies. Gaza, even before there was an Israel, was seen as the locus of Palestinian anger, largely because it has been poorer than other places in Palestine. Its intentional de-development under both Egyptian and Israeli occupation (Professor Sara Roy’s work on this long history is indispensable) made it a site of radicalism and idealism.

Israel determined to finish off Gaza once and for all. It unleashed its military might on the Strip, but also its political and diplomatic muscle as well. This proved to be far more effective than many believed it would be.

As Israel slaughtered its way through Gaza, one atrocity after another was ignored or made light of by western powers and by Arab leaders. Hollow words of condemnation meant nothing as weapons and trade continued to flow to Israel, not only from Washington, London, and Berlin, but also from Dubai, Manama, Rabat, Cairo, and Amman.

Thus emboldened, Israel destroyed Gaza. The death toll officially stands at around 45,000, but the true toll is far higher when one considers the effects of Israel’s blockade against food, water, medicine, electricity, and even rescue workers as well as the vast areas where the dead have yet to be recovered, counted, and identified.

By autumn of 2024, the Israeli far-right’s strategy was, in their view, vindicated to such an extent that it was emboldened to behave in a similar manner in Lebanon. While in this case Israel was more selective in its targeted and was willing, at a certain point, to diminish its activities across its northern border (it is important to note that Israel has retained, and acted upon, its authorization from Washington to continue to attack sites in Lebanon), Lebanon, already reeling from disasters, years of war, and a collapsed economy, was left in ruins.

Reveling in its excess and success, Israel invaded Syria without even the slightest hint of provocation after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Iran, whose own bluff in confronting Israel directly had been called and found wanting, had lost a lot of its reach when Israel decimated Hezbollah.

Invading Syria, even while much of the world cheered its people on for ousting Assad and sent the Syrian people more empty words of congratulations and hope, and destroying its ability to defend itself despite there having been no provocation at all, gathered Israel only the most minor of rebukes form the Arab world along with the unqualified support of the United States.

The strategy of might makes right, backed by the impunity granted Israel by its superpower patron, proved effective not only in slaughtering tens of thousands and sowing destruction, but in demonstrating that Israel would not be restrained.

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Vanguard of the global right

Meanwhile, fellow travelers in the United States and Europe grow more powerful and influential. The abject failures of so-called moderate leaders like Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, and it’s not too early to say, Keir Starmer to provide any solutions or even minor hope for most of their citizens or for a more peaceful and just world have fueled a faux-populist right movement that was already well underway.

While Ukraine is preparing to face a reality where the United States is far less supportive of its war effort, and thus will have to make major concessions to Russia, Vladimir Putin remains firmly ensconced in the Kremlin. Far-right parties in Germany (Alternative für Deutschland) and France (the National Rally) have made enormous gains in recent years.

The collapse of the Conservatives in the UK has cleared a path for far right figures like Nigel Farage to become the anti-immigrant face of the British right, although the Tories seem to be starting to regroup. Geert Wilders continues to rise in Dutch politics.

And, of course, there is the return of Donald Trump in the United States.

This is a far-right world that has seen what happens when Israel laughs in the face of international law, and how support falls in line when xenophobia, nationalism, and fear of violence can be harnessed by demagoguery.

Most of Netanyahu’s problems have not stemmed from military excesses but from his personal corruption and his disregard for the hostage Israelis in Gaza. But his use of excessive force, his resort to genocide, his decisions to strike at enemies in the most spectacular fashion even without cause have illuminated a path for other far-right leaders.

While Netanyahu has done this, he has also cracked down in Israel on free speech, a free press, and the freedom to protest. These have met resistance, yet his efforts continue to move forward. In other countries, including the United States efforts to subvert civil liberties and judicial constraints have met less resistance.

Israel under Netanyahu has shown the way toward and authoritarian future. And we are only just beginning to see the shape of the world that the far-right of many countries envisions.

Of course, there will be reactions. People do not simply tolerate repression forever. But we in the wets cannot simply wait for Palestinians and other oppressed people to take back their freedom. We have to address the growing authoritarianism in our own countries, an authoritarianism that does not stay confined to our own borders.

Resistance—real resistance, not the kind of soft liberalism from 2017—has never been more important.

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The (Temporary) Triumph of the Israeli Far-Right

After decades of feeling restrained, the most radical elements in Israeli politics have been let loose. For now, their tactics seem to have been vindicated.

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