Being in the Knesset has been kind to MK Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party. Disproving once more the maxim that sunlight is the best disinfectant, both Ben-Gvir and his party have enjoyed a surge of popularity since the last Israeli elections, benefitting from a seeming open invitation to be interviewed on Israel’s leading news programs. During a spike in violence last March, for example, the Kahanist leader was the second-most interviewed politician on Israeli television, after Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.

With Israelis set to vote in a national election for the fifth time in three-and-a-half years this November, polls consistently show Religious Zionism — the far-right election list that includes the eponymous party as well as Otzma Yehudit and the homophobic Noam party — increasing its vote share to nine seats out of the Knesset’s 120. Far from turning off voters with his open fascism, Ben-Gvir has instead won more supporters, all while his presence in public life has become increasingly normalized.

The racism and ultranationalism of Ben-Gvir and his allies are far from normal — and we at +972 Magazine, the only media outlet on the ground run by Palestinians and Israelis, have been covering the dangerous mainstreaming of the extreme right for years. Will you become a member of +972 today, and help us continue monitoring the Israeli far right?

There is precedent for Ben-Gvir and Otzma Yehudit’s rise. In the 1980s, after Ben-Gvir’s mentor, Meir Kahane, won a parliamentary seat with his party Kach, a similar pattern unfolded. Although he did not receive the same assistance from the Israeli media that Ben-Gvir has, Kahane’s popularity swelled in the years he served as a Knesset member. In the months leading up to the 1988 elections, Kach was projected to become the third-largest party in the country, with a tally of at least six seats.

The party was eventually barred from running, ostensibly on the grounds of its anti-democratic positions, but a sizable number of Israelis witnessed Kahane’s persecutory and dehumanizing rhetoric and “liked what they saw.”

Today, history is repeating itself. But far from accepting the Kahanists’ continued rise as inevitable, this is an opportunity to reassess the real source of their staying power: the prioritization of the idea of an ethnocratic Jewish state — with all the national, ethnic, and religious domination it implies — over the idea of a democracy.

To that end, while it may be comforting to consider the likes of Ben Gvir an aberration, he remains the product of a state in which forced displacements, extrajudicial killings, land expropriation, and systemic segregation are also not anomalies. Rather, they are, functional parts of an apparatus that has been designed to repress and erase Palestinian identity and history, in a country whose foundation caused mass expulsions of that population. Until Israel chooses democracy over ethnocracy and occupation, there will continue to be fertile soil in which future Ben-Gvirs can grow.

These connections continue to be under-reported in the mainstream media, and with Israeli elections on the way once more, our critical reporting from on the ground in Israel-Palestine is more important than ever. By joining +972 as a member of our nonprofit principled journalism community, you will be supporting the journalists, analysts, and researchers who do this work. Support +972 today! 

In solidarity,
Natasha Roth-Rowland
+972 Editor