Afrasianet - Oraib Al Rantawi - It is not right to talk about Itamar Ben-Gvir without invoking his brother in extremism and fascism, Bezalel Smotrich,
To them, and more than others, are linked to the rules governing the government and the coalition formed after the 2022 elections, from unbridled brutality, and fascism that is spreading on the Israeli political and social map, through the settlement encroachment that has not left and has not spared Palestinians, and the candidate to cross the borders with Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, and the of settlers, their herds and loose militias, and the transformation of prisons into "slaughterhouses" for killing Torture, starvation and humiliation, not ending with "Israelization" and the Judaization of Jerusalem and its holy sites, in implementation of the theory of "resolving the conflict with the Palestinians instead of managing it", and the "Greater Israel" project with its flexible maps drawn by brute force.
The two men meet in terms of goals and "dark intentions," and they differ, due to their different origins and references, in the patterns of discourse and behavior, and in the tools adopted to achieve the ultimate goals.
The rivalry between them for the leadership of the more extreme right-wing camp, nor the condescending view of the Ukrainian-Ashkenazi view of the "Kurdish-Mizrahi" has not spoiled the friendship between them, which is dictated by a deep and hidden desire to exploit what they consider to be a "historic opportunity" that will not be repeated, to implement their project based on the destruction of the "Palestinian entity" in all its pillars:
The land, the people, the political system, and the imposition of "Greater Israel" as a fait accompli, at least between the river and the sea.
However, before proceeding to diagnose the phenomenon of the "fascist twin", it is necessary to point out a mistake that many admit of ignorance, sometimes or even even in Yaakov's soul, when they limit the phenomenon of the spread of fascism to the two men, ignoring the role of the "third attaché", Benjamin Netanyahu, in escalating and relying on them, and exploiting sharp angles in their positions to resist external pressures, blackmail from within, and mobilize the support of the most extreme segments of Israeli society behind his government.
A second note, as well as a duty, is dictated by a deep awareness of the transformations that have taken place in the structure of Israeli society since the Second Intifada and the redeployment from the Gaza Strip, namely that the two men and their parties are only the visible part of the "iceberg", while its largest, immersive part, is represented in the disappearance of the leftist and centrist currents from the Israeli party map, as a logical result of the systematic shift towards a religious-nationalist right, manifested in the "Zionization of religion and the religiosity of Zionism", to create a central, national-Zionist, cross-party current, and not limited to a party In particular, Judaism is a "nationalism," not just a religion, as the "Founding Fathers" and current leaders of the Zionist movement saw and do.
About the most insatiable and wild duo
Unlike Smotrich, who derives his family name from the name of his hometown in Ukraine and inherited religious extremism from his well-to-do religious family, Ben-Gvir came to politics from the "bottom of the city," and his family was not religious, making his extremism an "acquired skill," and perhaps exaggerated, in revenge for his family's secular past.
The first played the role of the engineer mind for settlement projects, from within the state bureaucracy and through its tools of budgets and legislation, away from the limelight, the hustle and bustle of the street, while the second deserved the title of "descending populist instigator" against the Palestinians and Arabs, and sometimes against the Israeli left itself, and attended every demonstration and gathering in the street, and did not miss his persistent violations of the sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, without taking commemorative photos.
The first acquired the character of a "statesman", at a time when its institutions were turning into racism, savagery and settler gluttony, and he had a role in its executive and legislative corridors by strengthening and amplifying these trends. Kahane (= followers of the extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane), an activist in the Moledet party before joining the Kach movement, remained noisy in his performance, so much so that he found no place to declare his wife's love for her, except for the "mausoleum" of Baruch Goldstein, the butcher of the Ibrahimi Mosque.
Both did not serve in the army, Ben-Gvir was exempted from service because of his criminal record and his membership in a banned movement (Kach), and given that there are 50 indictments against him, while the second, he was granted special care, was exempted from combat military service, and spent a short time in office work attached to the Israeli Staff, yet they are the loudest voices in inciting others to serve, and they have the slogan: Let the army fight and win.
Despite the elements of Smotrich's "personal superiority" over Ben-Gvir in terms of Ashkenazi background, qualifications, and elitism, his party, the Religious Zionist Party, has never competed with the "Jewish greatness" of which Ben-Gvir sits at its head. The first is that it must pass the threshold of deciding according to the latest polls, and it has barely four seats (the minimum number of winners), according to the electoral law, and the threshold of deciding (3.25%).
Smotrich built a luxury house on stolen private Palestinian land in Jerusalem, and his father, Haim Yerucham, is the rabbi of the settlement of Beit El, and received his education at Merkaz Harf, the school where the settlers' strongest and most senior leaders graduated. The second is that he chose to reside in the epicenter of settler extremism, "Kiryat Arba", which houses the settlers' strongholds and their crops.
Smotrich is still subject to the ideas of his mentor and spiritual father, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, and is inspired by the legacy of Rabbi Zvi Kook, the founder of the Gush Emunim movement, while Ben-Gvir is keen to go back to the rabbi of Kiryat Arba, Dov Lior, the spiritual father of Baruch Goldstein, who is always indebted to Meir Kahane and the movement that bore his name.
Submersible part of the iceberg
The transition of religious Zionism and its sisters, from the margins of the Israeli party map to its center, did not occur overnight, but rather came as a result of shifts in the demographic-social structure of Israeli society, after the era of Ashkenazi-secular (Sahel) domination, led by the "Founding Fathers," had ended.
The secular, who are mostly Ashkenazi, today do not exceed 40% of the population, and they are decreasing due to low fertility rates, which are the lowest among the various social components in Israel, while the "Conservatives", who practice some of their religious obligations, constitute about a quarter of the population, most of whom are Mizrahi Jews, the ultra-Orthodox represent about 12% of the population, and the Orthodox are expected to reach about 15% of the population and are expected to reach a quarter of the population in a quarter of a century at the latest, and the last two categories They maintain higher birth rates than the rest of the groups, with up to 6.5 births per family (Smotrich 7 children, Ben Gvir 6).
The emergence of extremist religious-nationalist currents is no longer limited to the political arena (government and the Knesset), but has begun to penetrate deep state institutions, for example, in the army, supporters of religious Zionism (12% of the population), make up about 40% of graduates of military training institutes, and elite field officers, who climb the ladder of leadership in the army, and it is only a few years before the old secular Ashkenazi elites are transferred to retirement, replaced by generals heavily armed with nationalist religious ideology burdened with hate speech.
While penetrating the network in its senior positions is still difficult for this movement, due to its solid secular background, its cadre and grassroots levels have become a theater of influence for officers and members of this group, and unofficial and indefinite sources indicate that the largest number of army dead in the past three years' wars in Lebanon and Gaza are followers and "interlocutors" of religious Zionism.
The biggest breakthrough achieved by "Jewish greatness" was in the police apparatus, which Ben-Gvir takes over by virtue of his position as Minister of Security The entire apparatus is now acting like a "militia" that works side by side, with the settler militias that Ben Gvir supported, armed, and fortified from his government position.
The battle over the judiciary, the Supreme Court and the Attorney General of the Government, is perhaps one of the most dangerous arenas for the extreme right's attack on the institutions of the deep state, after it had recorded tangible successes in penetrating the media arena and controlling many of its written, visual and electronic media.
A cross-border threat
With unparalleled harmony, and with the push and blackmail of religious Zionism, the Netanyahu government is working to complete the implementation of the "Decisive Plan", Smotrich is undertaking the financial undermining of the PA and swallowing the land with legislation that has placed more than 80% of the West Bank in the category of "state property" ready to swallow the accelerated settlement expansions, while Ben Gvir is in charge of terrorizing the indigenous population with daily attacks on their lives and livelihoods, with the aim of emptying their areas, starting with Area C, and not ending with erasing the separations between the various lines of the Oslo Accords, its maps and divisions.
He also does not stop singing about his achievements in prisons, which he has turned into a hell cast over the heads of at least 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, and he wants to speed up the completion of the "execution line" to eliminate Hamas prisoners and October 7, collectively, not individually.
When it comes to Lebanon and Syria, they are the most enthusiastic about the slogan "Let the army win" and the deployment of settlements in the south of the two countries as the first line of defense for Israel, while the story of the "alternative homeland" was mocked by Smotrich yesterday, when he said: "Who wants to have millions of Palestinians along the border with Jordan?"
The rise of the most extreme right, and its most ugly symbol, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, does not only threaten the "two-state solution" and does not block any "meaningful/irreversible path" for the establishment of a Palestinian entity on the land of Palestine, but also threatens to swallow more Arab lands to the north and east, to spread cross-border settlements, and to threaten entities in their existence and not only in their security and stability. alone) with Israel.
