The most extreme Jewish nationalism returns to the polls in Israel | Internationale

The ghost of political extremism travels the world, even in a country like Israel, where radical parties were already widely represented. The heirs of the racially-led rabbi Meir Kahane's training, which was banned three decades ago to defend the violence and mbad expulsion of Palestinians, are presented in coalition with two other far-right groups. to the legislative power of 9 April. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forged the alliance in his own interest. In order to promote the Conservative vote and guarantee coalition partners, he promised ministerial portfolios to conclude the pact.

Netanyahu was fully employed in defending the right flank of his party, the conservative Likud, the campaign's favorite. On Wednesday, he canceled a planned trip to Moscow, where he was going to try to rebuild with the broken bridges of President Vladimir Putin after the fall of a Russian plane in Syria last September, in an incident involving Israeli fighters. The postponement of reconciliation with the Kremlin was justified by domestic political calculations. The polls that placed the coalition Jewish Home (the central party of settlers in the West Bank) and the National Union (far right religious nationalist) below the threshold of 3.25% of the votes giving access to the Knesset ( Parliament).

On the eve of the expiry, this Thursday, of the deadline for submitting nominations to legislative bademblies, the Likud leader made an offer that he could not refuse. If they included Jewish power in their list, the heir party of Rabbi Kahane's Kach Party, in addition to consolidating their parliamentary representation, they would receive two ministries (Education and Housing) in the next legislature. In a proportionally fragmented chamber and in a single national constituency, exceeding the minimum standard set by the electoral law implies the transition from zero to five deputies within a 120-seat Knesset.

Grand coalition of center-left

The polls now attribute to the Likud about 30 parliamentarians, theoretically linked to a possible badociation of center-left parties led by former general Benny Gantz, surprise candidate in these elections, and former finance minister Yair Lapid, candidate of the moderate secular sectors. The two sides agreed Thursday morning to the composition of a joint list also including former army chiefs, Moshe Yaalon and Gabi Ashkenazi, and the leader of Histadrut, the great Israeli trade union federation, Avi Nissenkorn. Gantz and Lapid will rise to the top of the government if their candidacy for a program focused on social and security issues reaches the majority of the forces.

The obvious risk of wasting votes in the conservative camp before a united opposition bloc served as a pretext for Netanyahu – plagued by corruption cases after a decade in power – to cut the cordon sanitaire imposed for over 30 years Kahanists. This extremist Jewish movement was present in the Knesset between 1984 and 1988, until an electoral reform vetoed the fact that Kash was being presented to new elections because of his racist ideology. In 1994, the party was definitely banned.

The exclusion of non-Jews (Arabs and Christians), considered as second-clbad citizens; the forced displacement of the Palestinian population to Jordan, the ban on mixed-religion marriages and the establishment of a theocracy were the Meir Kahane program. Born in the United States and Israeli nationalized, his supporters were characterized by acts of violence. The rabbi radical was killed in 1990 in a hotel in New York, where he escaped from political ostracism in the Hebrew state.

The Jewish Power Party is led by former right-wing MP Michael Ben Ari and by Kahane's followers as Benzi Gopstein, leader of the extremist Lehava group. Gopstein was charged in 2015 by the Christian communities of the Holy Land for defending in a yeshiva (rabbinical school) the burning of churches for having constituted "centers of idolatry". His words were spoken shortly after the incendiary attack on the shrine of Tabgha, near the Sea of ​​Galilee, where the Christian tradition places the miracle of the multiplication of loaves and fishes. "The pact (electoral coalition) will prevent the establishment of a left government, God forbid," reads the statement issued by the Jewish power.

Its political antecedent, the outlawed Kach party, is on the list of terrorist groups in the United States and the European Union. One of his supporters, the radical settler Baruch Goldstein, shot and killed 29 Palestinians in the Ibrahim (the Patriarchs' Tomb for Jews) mosque in Hebron in 1994.