Bezalel Smotrich, left, and Itamar Ben-Gvir with supporters in Jerusalem, March 2021. (Photo by Emmanuel Dunand / AFP via Getty Images.)
Gabe Ende: Israel – Friends on the Right: What are you waiting for?
Nahum Barnea is among my favorite columnists. His remarks are studded with interesting revelations, relevant insights, and a historical perspective which we would do well to internalize.
He wrote in his column last Friday:
“British historian Ian Kershaw’s book Personality and Government, describing the rise and fall of leaders in the twentieth century, was recently published in Hebrew translation. It includes the following passage on Mussolini:
“The weakness of the right-wing elite…was the decisive precondition for his rise to power. Without the support of the government, the fascists wouldn’t have been strong enough…The foundations of the political arrangement that elevated Mussolini to power became more and more solidified over time… The ministers believed that they would be able to control him. They were mistaken.”
Barnea does not quote Kershaw about the other leaders of the extreme right in that period between the two world wars, but the process for many of them—including in Germany—was remarkably similar. The “respectable right”, preoccupied with its hysterical hatred of the left, decided to support ultra-nationalist thugs who spoke with venom about “the other” and openly despised democratic values in the hope that they would put an end to “the Bolshevik monster”. They mistakenly thought that they would be able to control those uncultured and inexperienced punks when push came to shove– but in actuality, they enabled these dangerous characters to come to power and quickly establish terrifying totalitarian regimes.
Itamar Ben Gvir, a Judaeo-fascist from head to toe, was rescued by Bibi from the dregs of political illegitimacy and irrelevance and presented with a major power base in the Knesset and the government. He has already succeeded in establishing his personal autonomy as Minister of National Security over the police and prison authorities as well as parts of the West Bank, in league with Betzallel Smotrich. He functions as the undisputed boss in these provinces. The Prime Minister carefully avoids confrontations with him, even when he refuses to execute policies clearly enunciated by the government. He announced after praying with other Jews on the Temple Mount– in open violation of long-standing government policy– that “This is a subject for the government to decide upon and ( in this issue) I am the government.”
It’s possible that Netanyahu and his associates plan to trip him up in some dark political corner, but Ben Gvir’s “street smarts” make this unlikely. He is currently the most popular figure on the right excluding Bibi—and should he order his followers to register as Likud members, he could take the ruling party by storm and position himself as Netanyahu’s successor. After all, between a quarter and a third of the Likud’s MK’s repeatedly demonstrate by their actions that they respect his leadership.
Will the people of the right who possess democratic values (beyond the principle of “Winner takes all” ) finally stand up and decide to stop him? Or will they continue to broadcast that the order of the day remains “preventing the rise of the left at all costs” and enable the Kahanist rabble-rouser to continue galloping to the Prime Minister’s seat in the future?
Admittedly, we have more serious and immediate crises to attend to, but the acknowledged position of the fascist from Hevron as the most hawkish figure in the government increases his popularity on the right from day to day. And if the “respectable right” in the Likud continues to seek to contain him as their did their predecessors in western Europe so miserably nearly a century ago, the coveted prize may fall into Ben Gvir’s hands as a ripened fruit—and the Jewish state will become the graveyard of Jewish morality and ultimately of the Zionist vision.
