On 8 November 2022, the Unit for Political Studies at the ACRPS held a public lecture by General Director Dr Azmi Bishara, titled “The 2022 Israeli Elections: The Continued Rightward Shift and the Rise of Religious Zionism.” Bishara discussed the results of the most recent Israeli Knesset elections held on 1 November 2022 from a comparative perspective, juxtaposing them with the results of the last round of Knesset elections, held on 23 March 2021, to explain the rise of religious Zionism, transformations within the Israeli right, and the disappearance of the Zionist left in favour of other parties that have taken up its mantle.
In the introduction to his lecture, Bishara stressed the importance of being able to distinguish between state and system of governance, as a measure of the internal stability of states. He indicated that Israel has conducted five rounds of legislative elections in four years, but that this has not impacted the stability of its institutions: “the conflict around who should govern has intensified, but the state itself is not up for debate”. Hence, political conflict has been independent of the issue of state sovereignty from the domestic perspective within Israel, which, despite the settler-colonial entity Israel represents, offers a model by which to study how states emerge and what their most important constituent elements are. This issue is significant because, in other contexts, political conflict can cause state fragmentation, disrupt the function of its institutions, and call its legitimacy into question. This is what has happened in the Arab Middle East, where political rifts have become social, or vice versa, consequently leading to the obstruction of state institutions and pose an existential threat to them. This is a central issue for the study of the dynamics of Israel’s domestic politics in reference to preserving its stability.
Bishara analysed the results of the 2022 Knesset elections in comparison with the previous round in 2021, clarifying that there has not been a left-to-right shift in Israeli political life, as this is a process which has been underway since the 1967 war. Rather, it occurred within the right wing itself, with far-right parties losing votes to other far-right parties. The primary reason is that right-wing parties such as Yamina, whose former chairman Naftali Bennett became prime minister, have paid the price of agreeing to rely on Arab Members of Knesset to form a governing coalition that would prevent Netanyahu’s return to power. This worked in the latter’s favour, as votes shifted toward the religious Zionist parties in his coalition. Further, Bishara observed that every time resistance operations intensify on occupied Arab lands, leading to deaths, Israeli society shifts further to the right. Particularly in the West Bank, armed action is met at least in its early stages with a fanatical nationalist response, especially among settlers.
While addressing the map of political alliances, Bishara drew attention to the disappearance of the Zionist left, which governed Israel for the first three decades of its existence, in favour of other parties. The most important of these is Yesh Atid, which is not left-wing as some would suggest; rather, it is a right-wing party in its social, political, and economic agenda that represents capitalist corporations and the middle classes of cities that wish to maintain a liberal lifestyle, including issues of personal status, and that are in favour of reaching a political compromise to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — albeit on their own terms.
Bishara affirmed that the conflict is about Netanyahu’s personality, not his positions, pointing out that the leadership of all the secular right-wing parties, such as Yisrael Beitenu, led by Avigdor Lieberman, National Unity, led by Benny Gantz and Gideon Sa’ar, and Jewish Home, previously led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett before his retirement from political life, worked with Netanyahu as chiefs of staff prior to forming new parties against him. Thus, it is not a dispute over policies but over Netanyahu as a figure, along with viewpoints on the corruption charges he faces that have led some secular right-wing parties that espouse Zionist values to assert that he should not remain in power. Apart from criminal charges, there is also disagreement over Netanyahu’s opportunism, dishonesty, despotism, and self-centredness.
Bishara argued that the rise of the Religious Zionism coalition, with representation increasing from 6 to 14 seats in the Knesset (or from 225,641 to 516,146 votes in these elections), is the most striking and ominous feature of these elections. Notably, the list won 20% of the vote among soldiers in IDF camps. Bishara observed that, since the foundation of the religious movement, there has always been a religious and Zionist current, but not religious-Zionist in the sense of an association between religion and Zionism, as has become the case since the rise of settler movements in the West Bank. There have been politicians represented by the religious-nationalist Mafdal party who were both religious and Zionists. But what distinguishes the religious-Zionist trend born of the settlement movement in the occupied territories is the equating of religion to Zionism and the Biblical “Land of Israel” to the State of Israel, particularly following the 1967 war. This has led to the outgrowth of religious-nationalism and the emergence of religious-Zionist movements.
In this context, Bishara indicated that the social base of the religious-Zionist party is spread between the Occupied West Bank, where the number of settlers had reached 465,000 by 2021, and East Jerusalem, where more than 200,000 settlers reside. It has voters in other regions and received 20% of the vote in IDF camps; contrary to the ultra-Orthodox religious movements that avoid military service, supporters of religious-Zionist movements have no qualms in this regard. Moreover, unlike the Haredi movements that do not partake in economic activities save for the financial and commercial sectors, supporters of religious-Zionist movements work in agriculture, industry, as well as the military. In this way, these movements represent the essence of the Zionist project, having entered leadership positions in the army and elite units, in industry, and the hi-tech sector.
While presenting on the context for the blending of Zionism and religion, Bishara discussed Haredi parties, with the number of religious Haredim in Israel being around 1,175,000, accounting for 12.6% of the population. The growth rate of this community is approximately 4.2% per annum, compared 1.9% among the general population, and their fertility rates are double those of the Arab population. Historically, Haredim have been uninterested in politics, and their concerns have been limited to obtaining a respectable share of the state budget and passing legislation related to their religious life such as regulations on the Sabbath and dietary law, and they have been successful in this respect. Yet there has been a transformation in the life of the second and third generations of Haredi party supporters, who lived in Israel and grew up in a Zionist environment. After being opposed to Zionism, they have become Zionists. After having been concerned solely with religion — as they did not have a problem with Arabs and Muslims so much as with Europe — they are now part of Israeli life and indoctrinated into Israeli racism. This change particularly impacted Mizrahi Jews who had lived in Palestine as a religious community: in the environment of the Israel-Palestinian conflict and amid political tensions, their discourse was Zionised and they became Zionists. Some of them adopted radical Zionism, and a portion of them joined the settlements, playing a negative role in the Jerusalem issue. The overall tendency, therefore, has been rightward.
As part of his well-known assertion that Israel will not fall due to its internal contradictions, nor without struggle or conflict, contrary to what some argue to justify inaction in the conflict with Israel, Bishara took note of the major economic progress Israel has achieved in recent years toward becoming a developed capitalist country. It was one of the least-affected states during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis and maintained growth given the increase in nominal and per capita GDP, inflation rate, public debt-to-GDP ratio, and research and development spending — not only in universities and research institutes but also including army research centres, weapons development, and technology development, which would indicate an increase in export volume, especially in the hi-tech sector. Over the past decade, exports in this sector increased overall by 350%. The United States came at the top of the list at 30%, while 8.2% of these exports went to China, 5.1% to India, and the rest to Europe. As for official annual exports to Arab states, Israel exported the equivalent of $385 million the United Arab Emirates, $121 million to Egypt, $64 million to Jordan, $30 million to Morocco, and $3 million to Bahrain. From this, Bishara concluded that Israel is actively involved in the global economic system and, thus, that there are real possibilities to apply pressure on it. These sprawling relations reflect a developed economy, a high standard of living, and middle classes who now have something to lose. Israel is no longer the way it was before 1967, living in austerity with a semi-socialist, agriculture-based economy. Now, it is a developed capitalist state with a network of relations, meaning that it affects and is affected by the world and can be pressured into making concessions.
Bishara indicated that the issue of Arab voter turnout remains a heated topic, specifically with regard to the questions that arise about Arabs voting in the Knesset, their ability to influence, and the dilemma over whether to vote or boycott. Ideological positions and preconceptions, as well as a general lack of information further obfuscate the issue. Added to that is a type of purposely manufactured ignorance in Arab public opinion, with some Arab regimes instrumentalizing the Palestinian cause, and no real work being done to educate Arab citizens about the complexities of the Palestinian issue. Accordingly, Arab citizens of Israel, who constitute about 19% of the population of the occupying state, have become victims of sweeping generalizations and value judgments, whether positive or negative, without any acknowledgement of their diversity, the political currents to which they belong, and the nature of their relationship with the occupying state.
The voter turnout among Arabs citizens of Israel in these elections was around 53-54%, but Bishara noted the inaccuracy inherent to this calculation due to mixed cities. In contrast, the Jewish voter turnout was about 70.5%. Running on three electoral lists, the Arab parties obtained a total of 10 seats, and the total votes they obtained represented 10.67 percent of the total vote, compared to 8.61 percent in 2021 — that is, the percentage of Arab votes actually increased in these elections. The discussion moved to the unification of Arab parties, which ran in 2015 on the Joint Arab List, securing 13 seats in the Knesset. In the elections that followed, in 2019, the same parties split into two blocs; with one party winning 6 seats and the other 4 and total votes decreasing to 7.82 percent. Reuniting in the 2020 elections, where Arab voter turnout rose to an all-time high of 65%, the Joint Arab List secured a huge increase of 15 seats, in part as a reaction to Netanyahu’s incitement against Arabs and his attempts to de-legitimise the Arab vote.
Bishara explained that since 2021, fundamental differences surfaced when some Arab forces decided to nominate former Security Minister Benny Gantz to head the coalition government, setting a dangerous precedent. The Arab parties had always refrained from nominating a candidate for prime minister, based on the principle of preserving their own national identity, but opportunism and an atmosphere of populism put short-term gains before long-term political goals. In addition, some Arab political forces in Israel were influenced by the Arab normalisation agreements, which prompted them to join the ruling political coalitions in a futile attempt to see some of their demands met. Bishara emphasised that this step was not only an ethical blunder, as an alliance with settler colonialism, and a distortion of the image of Arab society, but was also a mistake in pragmatic calculations. Within the ruling framework of Israel, the Arab remains an “accidental citizen,” and any rights the Arab has have been gained through steadfast defiance and struggle, by taking advantage of the crumbs of Israeli democracy in Israel and undertaking professional parliamentary work, which in no way means giving up and entering into a coalition that is actively seeking the Judaization of Al-Aqsa.
Bishara concluded by calling attention to the Balad party, which ran independently in these elections and was met with an outpouring of popular support and sympathy, obtaining a number of votes that shocked observers. Time had not been on Balad’s side, given that some political forces on the eve of the elections failed to honour the agreement that obliges Arab parties not to nominate any Zionist camp as head of government. Nevertheless, Balad’s achievement could represent a starting point for rebuilding the national movement in the future.
