Israel Ruled by Hardline Religious Nationalism, Charles Enderlin (Le Monde Diplomacy)

〇n November 1 Israel will hold its fifth general election in just over three years. Opinion polls confirm momentum for the nationalist right and its supporters, religious Zionist parties, especially among voters ages 18 to 25. Binyamin Netanyahu’s coalition is predicted to win the majority. (1)Among them, Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party and Itamar Ben Guvir’s Otma Yehudit (Jewish Strength) Party (2) It is expected to win 11-14 seats.

This development is also the result of the entrenchment of religious nationalist ideologies in parts of Israeli society. One of his main proponents of it is his Israeli-American Yoram Hazony, who popularized it to the Far Right in America and Europe.his book virtues of nationalism As soon as it was published in September 2018, it grabbed attention in conservative American circles. It became a bestseller and was translated into about 20 languages.He was inspired to write it two years ago by watching the rise of nationalism after Britain’s Brexit vote and Donald Trump’s election victory in America. became an important figure to the ultranationalists of the United States and may have influenced the foreign policy known as the Trump Doctrine (3)He is on good terms with Hungarian President Viktor Orban, who regularly quotes him.

My life goal is to show that Marxist and Zionist concepts have failed in Israel… Now we have to fight for the future of how we think about Jews as a whole. Hmm

Yoram Hazony

Hazony’s position, updated for the present day with less anti-Semitism, was theorized by French right-wing thinker Charles Mauras, who said, “A true nationalist puts his country above all else.” It contains most of the elements of integrated nationalism. The ideals and principles of the French Revolution. Hazony sees the European Union as embodying a form of imperialism aimed at restoring the Holy Roman Empire, and sees Hitler as an imperialist rather than a nationalist.

Shortly after his book was published, Hazoney founded the Edmund Burke Foundation in Washington to strengthen “the principles of national conservatism in the West and other democracies.” Irish-born British politician Edmund Burke was a leading critic of the French Revolution and his 1790 Declaration of the Rights of Mankind. The co-chair of the foundation, David Brogg, is the former executive director of the American organization Christians for Israel. He claims to have 10 million members.

In June 2022, the Burke Foundation laid out its ideology in its manifesto, National Conservatism: A Statement of Principles. (Four)The preamble states, “We respect the traditions of independent and self-governing nations in proper public orientation to patriotism and courage, honor and loyalty, religion and wisdom, congregation and family, men and women, Sabbath and pacifism.” We are conservatives because we believe such virtues are essential to the maintenance of our civilization. In addition, Article 4, “God and Public Religion,” states, “Where Christians form the majority, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, and should be governed by the state and other public and private institutions.” should be respected by.” At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities should be protected.

Influence of Meia Kahane

Hazony’s religious and ideological journey began as an undergraduate at Princeton University. One evening in 1984 Meir Kahane came there and talked to 250 Jewish students. Rabbi Kahane, who founded the far-right Jewish Defense League (JDL), was convicted of terrorism in the United States and imprisoned several times in Israel for attacks against Palestinians. In 1984, he had just been elected to parliament as part of an outright racist list. His speech opened Hazony’s eyes: “We were fascinated…Rabbi Kahane cares about our lives and actually comes and does what we think we can do.” He was the only Jewish leader who spoke to me. He was the only one who seemed to understand how much we needed a legitimate reason to remain Jewish. (Five).

Writing shortly after Kahane’s assassination in 1990, Hazoney made it clear that he never subscribed to his violent political views, but rejected Kahane’s brand of neo-Messianic theology. adopted. Jews, not Western countries. Jewish values ​​are true, not Western values ​​(or Eastern values). What is right and true is not determined by liberal, democratic, or progressive circles. (6).

Five years after the Princeton Conference, Hazony moved with his wife and four children to the Eli settlement in the centrally occupied West Bank.While working on his political philosophy paper, he jerusalem post, Israel’s leading English-language daily was bought by a Canadian news group and moved to the right. Its editor-in-chief, David Bar-Ilan, liked the young Israeli-American settler’s writing and introduced him to Likud chairman Binjamin Netanyahu.

Hazony helped Netanyahu edit places in the countries, A book that lays out plans for future prime ministers. It was published in English in 1993 and a Hebrew edition in 1995. There were already signs of his Hazony’s trademark approach to history. For example, the claim that it was not the Romans who expelled the Jews from Palestine after the Jewish rebellion under Bar Kokhba in 135 AD, but the Arabs in 636 AD, early in Islam. – hotly contested by historians – (7).

Another example of how Hazony influenced the book is when Netanyahu said (in the Hebrew version) that “the Israeli left may be suffering from a chronic disease that has affected Jews for a century.” Occurs when asserting that there is Far-left and communist movements in Eastern Europe. A pain that may explain why some left-wing Israelis wanted to return conquered territories after the June 1967 war.

“Jewish and democratic”

In 1994, with financial support from wealthy Americans with ties to Netanyahu, Hazony founded the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. This is a think tank aimed at addressing the “identity crisis” that “whether the entire Jewish people are suffering”.of It’s a cat A spokesman for the settlers movement, he said, “My goal in life is to prove that Marxist and Zionist concepts have failed in Israel. No one believes it anymore, and Now we must fight for the future of how we think about Jews in general and Israel in particular. (8).

Let us never forget that we came here in the land of Israel to build a Jew, not a Western nation. Jewish values ​​are true, not Western values ​​(or Eastern values).What is right and true is not determined by liberal, democratic or progressive circles

Meia Kahane

of The Jewish State: The Struggle for the Soul of Israel, Published six years later, Hazony claims to reveal what he sees as “a grand conspiracy abandoned by culture makers.”[d] Thoughts of the Jewish State”. It dates back to the 1920s, he writes. When the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was founded by the great Jewish intellectuals, Judas Leon Magness, an American reformist rabbi, pacifist and opponent of nationalism, and the philosopher Martin Buber including. Accords with the Arabs and supporters of bilateral states. Hazony accused the historian and philosopher Gershom Scholem, an expert in Jewish mysticism, of being guilty of encouraging Zionist leaders to neutralize the Messianic tendencies of their movement. ing. According to Hazony, this “systematic stripping”[ped Zionism’s] The Basis for Jewish Political Claims” (9).

Hazony also holds Tel Aviv University philosopher Asa Kasher responsible for defining a “Jewish democracy.” A clear expression of the citizen’s Jewish identity. In a “Jewish and democratic” state, this coloring is done not by force or law, but rather through the collective free choice of citizens. Hazony notes, “Kasher argues that a ‘Jewish and democratic’ state is one in which the people are Jewish and the state is a universalist democracy. In other words, ‘Jewish A democratic Jewish state in non-Jewish state’ (Ten)According to this logic, democratic principles would lead to the de-Jewishization of Israel.

Hazony’s list of visionary enemies against Israel is long. Topping that list is Supreme Court Justice and former President Aharon, who oversaw constitutional reform and defined Israel’s values ​​as a Jewish state as “universal values ​​common to members of a democratic society.”・This is Barack. Hazony has also criticized prominent Israeli writers for rejecting the very concept of a Jewish state. Among them are the late Amos Oz, who saw nationalism as a curse on humanity, and the late AB Yehoshua, who argued that Israel should be treated as a normal nation. Author David Grossman is also targeted. weakness virtuous [and yet] To accept it is to destroy the foundation upon which the entire building of the Jewish state rests. ” (11).

Hazony is a central part of the religious Zionist ideological ecosystem of Messianic rabbis and ultranationalist organizations, built over the years, through its ties to the Republican Party of the United States and Jewish rights. 1998 The Tikvah Foundation, established in 1999, raises most of its money through donations from wealthy Americans. Founded in 2012, the Kohelet Policy Forum is a religious Zionist think tank, according to the daily. Haaretz, run the knesset quietly (12)Its lobbying helped pass a discriminatory new basic law in July 2018. It states, “The State of Israel is the Jewish nation-state and the realization of its natural, cultural, religious and historical right of self-determination. The State shall regard the development of Jewish settlements as a national value and shall act to encourage and facilitate their establishment and integration. Twenty-four years later, Yoram Hazony’s ideas have become national law.