Days after taking office, as he issued executive order after executive order to change the political face of America, Donald Trump also turned his attention to the war in Gaza.
His proposal that Gaza should be cleared out and Palestinians should be relocated to other countries such as Egypt and Jordan has been met with outraged disbelief in many quarters. The Arab League has accused him of advocating ethnic cleansing.
But Trump’s statement has met with approval from far-right leaders in Israel. Influential politicians have been advocating for this “solution” for years. These include finance minister and leader of the Religious Zionist party, Bezalel Smotrich and his ideological ally Itamar Ben Gvir, leader of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Strength) party and former national security minister.
Smotrich responded to Trump’s utterance with the declaration that he aimed to turn the idea into an actionable policy. Ben Gvir, who resigned his ministerial position recently in response to the Israeli acceptance of the latest ceasefire deal, claimed that the evacuation of Gazans was the most “humanitarian answer” to the crisis and the only way to ensure peace and security for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The pair – and their followers in Israel – share an anti-Arab ideology and a messianic belief in the Jewish people’s right to what they call “Greater Israel”. This would be a Jewish state which would also include the West Bank, which they referred to as “Judea and Samaria”, as well as Gaza and part of Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
They have repeatedly called for Israel to use the war as an opportunity to reoccupy Gaza.
These leaders enjoy a degree of influence due to the amount of media attention they receive. But it would be a mistake to assume they represent the majority of Israelis.
Data collected in 2024 by the Pew Research Center found that 45% and 41% of Israelis expressed very unfavourable views of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, respectively. In the 2022 elections, as the combined Religious Zionist party, they won just 10.84% of the vote.
Meanwhile, the Israel Democracy Institute found that a majority of Israelis (57.5%) support a comprehensive deal for the release of all the hostages in return for an end to the war in Gaza.
And yet Israel’s ultranationalists have been able to take advantage of the changing political landscape in Israel over the past few decades and the fragile multiparty system to wield disproportionate power over a government that has depended on their support to stay afloat.
Israel’s rightwards shift
During the 1990s, there was significant support in Israeli society for the Oslo peace process towards a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This culminated in the historic handshake between the then Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, and the Palestine Liberation Organisation chairman, Yasser Arafat, on the White House lawn in 1993.
While support for the peace process reached a high of 72% in Israel in 1995 when Oslo II was signed, right-wing factions attempted to derail the agreements. Rabin was assassinated in November 1995 by Yigal Amir, an extremist Israeli Jew, who did not want to see the realisation of a Palestinian state.
The collapse of the Camp David talks in 2000, which then prime minister Ehud Barak blamed on Arafat, was followed in short order by the outbreak of the second intifada. The idea that there was “no partner for peace on the Palestinian side” became a mantra for Israeli voters, who looked to those who could guarantee their security.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who had been prime minister from 1996 to 1999, returned to power in 2009, with the image of “Mr Security”.
Netanyahu is now Israel’s longest serving prime minister. His masterful manipulation of the fragile political system in Israel has accounted for his longevity in power.
But it has also enabled a gradual shift towards the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history. Part of that has been the Religious Zionist camp.
Biblical promise
The Religious Zionists originally formed a small minority of the broader Zionist movement in the years preceding the declaration of the State of Israel. Religious Zionists combine faith and nationalism. Their core belief is that the Jewish people have the God-given right to settle the whole of Greater Israel.
The West Bank in particular, but also the Gaza Strip, were the sites of many key events in biblical times and the home of a number of Israelite kingdoms. In the Bible, God promises this land to the descendants of Abraham – the Jewish people. Religious Zionists have chosen to take this literally.
Having failed to wield power through the parliament in the early days of statehood, the Religious Zionists sought to realise their ideology through extra-parliamentary activity. This meant establishing settlements with a view to change facts on the ground. In the aftermath of the 1967 war, the main focus of settlement building was national security, rather than religious nationalist ideology.
But ideology has always been a key factor for those who live in the settlements in the West Bank today – and those who vow to return to Gaza. The movement has been successful by establishing outposts and settlements in the West Bank and in getting “their people” into government.
The Religious Zionist camp is broad and heterogeneous, and according to recent polls now represents 22% of the Jewish population in Israel. The party’s position in holding the balance of power in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, since the election in 2022, has enabled them to gradually wield greater influence on Israeli policy both in the West Bank and the war in Gaza.
Meanwhile many of their supporters have formed settler groups, who use violence to destabilise and displace Palestinian families living in the West Bank.
And now the US president has not only backed one of their dearest dreams, to clear Palestinians from Gaza, he has removed the Biden-era sanctions on several of the most aggressive settler groups. So the recent news that Netanyahu will be the first foreign leader to visit the White House next week feels particularly ominous for the fate of the Palestinian people.
Leonie Fleischmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
