First published in Deník N.

Even if Israelis vote out the current government, an ideological shift will endure, says Beth Oppenheim, a policy fellow in the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The London-based analyst explains how once-fringe ideas have crept into the political mainstream and the limitations of liberalism.

In this interview:

• Why Netanyahu’s departure would not bring about fundamental change.
• How 7 October has put diplomacy permanently off the table.
• What to expect if a new government was elected in Knesset (Israeli parliament) elections.
• The lessons Europe can draw from all this.

You say Israel’s illiberal and ethnonationalist turn represents a transformation beyond Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu; these ideologies would not disappear even with him gone. In your analysis of Israeli politics, you avoid the traditional left–right political spectrum – why?

Beth Oppenheim: In the Ideas of Israel project for ECFR, I wanted to unpack this binary we often see on the question of Netanyahu’s leadership. He dominates Israeli politics, but the debate about the prime minister often obscures more interesting trends like the rightward shift of Israeli politics. Often, the opposition is referred to as the liberal bloc, whom the right wing label as leftists – but this is inaccurate.

The pro-Netanyahus form a government coalition, while the opposition bloc is actually rather ideologically diverse. So in my research I wanted to go beyond the reductive question of Netanyahu to understand how parties behave in elections; I wanted to see where all these different parties’ ideologies and visions fit in. 

And this led you to categorise Israeli parties into four groups: the liberal Zionists, the nationalists, the ultra-Orthodox camp, and the religious nationalists. Could you describe each group? Let’s start with the liberal Zionists, who are considered the most left-wing of the Jewish Israeli camps…

Of course. The liberal Zionists include figures such as Yair Golan, Yair Lapid and Gadi Eisenkot.

Eisenkot (Yashar party) is a former general in the military. Despite this, many on the right brand him as a leftist. 

Lapid (Yesh Atid party) comes from a liberal centrist tradition in the mould of his father. Like Eisenkot, he is very secular. A secular vision for Israel and an emphasis on liberal democratic institutions unite the camp of liberal Zionists.

Golan (The Democrats party) is the left flank of this camp. In Europe, he wouldn’t be seen as far left, but within the Israeli spectrum, he is seen as radical. He has security credentials, too, but he’s the only liberal Zionist who talks about a political settlement with the Palestinians. 

The two-state solution is not really on the menu in the Jewish Israeli political mainstream – that’s now the preserve of the far-left fringe; it’s not a mainstream discussion anymore. 

“The two-state solution is not really on the menu in the Jewish Israeli political mainstream”

The liberal Zionists are united around their secularism and their commitment to the liberal democratic institutions, but there’s one big caveat: when it comes to the Palestinian issue, their liberalism is more circumscribed. 

They are not talking about the ongoing occupation and the effect that that has on Israel’s democratic standing. But of course, they’re very united in their opposition to Netanyahu.

The liberal Zionist camp lacks a coherent platform other than this; they basically advocate for good governance, but don’t offer a robust vision. 

And that cannot be said about the nationalists, whose vision is quite clear, right?

Traditionally, the nationalist camp was the mainstream right wing. Today’s main contenders are prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Naftali Bennett is running on a joint list with Lapid’s Yesh Atid, called Beyachad (‘Together’). Bennett and Lapid joined forces despite coming from different ideological traditions. They have very different ideas about the country, but they’re coming together to present a more technocratic agenda, get Netanyahu out and normalise Israeli politics. 

The nationalist camp descends from the Revisionist Zionist tradition based on Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s vision: a liberal democratic outlook fused with ultra-nationalist convictions. So to take a Revisionist Zionist view is to take a hawkish and hardline approach towards Arabs, while keeping a commitment to liberal democratic values. But affinity for liberalism and democratic values has really withered away over recent decades, not only under Netanyahu.

And then there is the ultra-Orthodox camp, without which the current government would never have completed a full term.

The ultra-Orthodox group does not fit easily on the left-to-right political spectrum, which in the Israeli understanding is defined by hawkishness on Palestinians and security.

They are made up of two Ashkenazi parties – Degel HaTorah and Agudat Yisrael – and Sephardic party Shas. What unites them is strict religious observance of Jewish law and their commitment to separation from secular society or modernity.

“The ultra-Orthodox camp is predominantly non-Zionist, but not necessarily anti-Zionist”

Interestingly, the ultra-Orthodox camp is predominantly non-Zionist, but not necessarily anti-Zionist since they didn’t endorse the creation of Israel in its secular form. They engage with the state, but in a limited way – they’re very transactional and pragmatic.

And the ultra-orthodox camp work within state apparatus to advance sectoral interests, yeshiva education, the military service exemption, and subsidies to maintain a somewhat introverted separation from the rest of society.

They are mostly passive when it comes to issues of foreign policy and security policy, but they do not support loss of Jewish life for nationalist ends – they don’t believe that the state in its current form is sacred. And so they don’t, for instance, endorse the loss of Jewish life for territorial expansion.

That leaves us with the last category: the religious nationalist camp.

Religious nationalists draw together ultra-orthodox religious observance, but with ultra-nationalism.

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