2022-10-31 16:36:00
If there was one big story dominating Israel‘s 2022 Knesset election, it was the rise in popularity of the Religious Zionism A party. Party leaders Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich claim to have moderated their extremism, but their party platform reflects their racist, supremacist, homophobic and theocratic attitudes.
On this episode of Haaretz Weekly, recorded hours before Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday, Professor Jonathan Rynhold joins the host. Allison Kaplan Sommer explain the reasons behind the rise of the party and why Benjamin Netanyahu is responsible for mainstreaming it.
In a wider context, Rynhold who believes that the rise of far-right popularity in Israel does not mean that the country is following the trend of strengthening populist and xenophobic right-wing parties in Europe or Christian nationalism and Trumpism in the United States.
Instead, he says, “I think the rest of the world is more like Israel.”
Continue live coverage of the Israeli political drama today on haaretz.com.
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