To describe the mellowing of his views once in office, former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon reputedly paraphrased a song lyric: “What you see from here, you don’t see from there.” Incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who knows the office better than anyone, would be wise to remind his new coalition partners of those words.
The government Netanyahu is currently forming may well be the most radical in Israel’s history. To win election, his conservative Likud party allied with a far-right bloc known as Religious Zionism. One of its leaders, former Transportation Minister Bezalel Smotrich, has called for changes that would dramatically limit the powers of the judiciary. Another, Itamar Ben-Gvir, advocates dismantling the Palestinian Authority, expanding Jewish prayer rights at the Temple Mount — one of the holiest sites in both Judaism and Islam — in defiance of a 55-year-old agreement, and expelling Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel deemed to be “disloyal.” Both support annexing the West Bank outright without granting Palestinians full citizenship rights.
Having alienated other right-wing figures during his previous stints in power, Netanyahu is now dependent on Religious Zionism to hold power. Yet indulging the bloc’s most extreme demands would be deeply corrosive to Israel’s democracy and its international standing. Undercutting the independence of the judiciary, which could help Netanyahu evade corruption charges, would eliminate one of the few checks and balances in the Israeli political system. Expelling Israeli Arabs, expanding settlements, annexing territory and changing the status quo on the Temple Mount would almost surely spark renewed violence.
