‘Something new begins’ – religious Zionism in the 2013 elections: from decline to political recovery

Abstract

Habayit Hayehudi party was one of the most noteworthy phenomena of the general elections held in Israel in 2013. In the 2009 elections the party's main predecessor only won three seats, and polls conducted in the first half of 2012 cast doubt upon its chances of passing the minimum threshold. Defying these predictions, Habayit Hayehudi won 12 seats to become the fourth largest Knesset party. This article's primary claim is that the party's success derived from its leaders' ability to cater to the aspirations and needs ensuing from the traumatic 2005 Gaza disengagement and to replace the feelings of distress and disorientation with a positive momentum.

Keywords::

• Israeli elections
• Naftali Bennett
• all-Israeli icon
• religious Zionism
• Gaza disengagement
• Gush Emunim
• political right
• political recovery

Notes

^1. In Hebrew, the name of the party contains the definitive article. In order to reduce confusion, throughout the article the name will be treated in English as if it is not defined.

^2. Lit. revival or uprising.

^3. Iynon Shalom, “Dahaf Institute Survey: The NRP and National Union Parties – Out of the Knesset,” Srugimwebsite, April 30, 2012, http://www.srugim.co.il/31429-%D7%A8%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%93%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%93%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%A1%D7%A7%D7%A8-%D7%9E%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%9F-%D7%93%D7%97%D7%A3-%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A2-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%9C-%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%A0?di = 1 (accessed January 1, 2014).

^4. Between the 2006 and 2009 elections, the ‘National Union’ Party consisted of ‘Tekuma’, ‘Ach'i’ and ‘Moledet’, and except for MK Aryeh Eldad, all the other representatives of this party were religious Zionists. After the failed unification attempt with the NRP, the list changed, and the three parties that now made up the ‘National Union’ Party were ‘Tekuma’, a religious-Zionist party, ‘HaTikva’, the secular-nationalist party of Aryeh Eldad, and ‘Eretz Yisrael Shelanu’, a party made up of pupils of Rabbi Meir Kahane and Messianic Chabad Hassidim led by Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpo (‘HaTikva’ means ‘The Hope’ and ‘Eretz Yisrael Shelanu’ means ‘Our Land of Israel’).

^5. Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser, “Stability in the Haredi Camp and Upheavals in Nationalist Zionism: An Analysis of the Religious Parties in the 2009 Elections,” Israel Affairs 16, no. 1 (2010): 82–104.

^6. Yagil Levy, The Other Army of Israel: Materialist Militarism in Israel [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Yediot Ahronot and Sifrei Hemed, 2003); Reuven Gal, ed., Between the Yarmulke and the Beret – Religion, Politics and Army in Israel [in Hebrew] (Ben Shemen: Modan, 2012).

^7. Akiva Eldar and Edith Zertal, The Lords of the Land: The Settlers and the State of Israel 1967–2004 [in Hebrew] (Or Yehuda: Dvir, 2004).

^8. Settlers Talk, “Let's Take Responsibility on our Future” (paper presented at conference held at Matte Binyamin, January 26, 2006).

^9. Asher Cohen, “Something New Begins: The Transformation of the Religious-Zionists in the 2013 Elections – From an Open Party Camp to Multiple-Party Representation” [in Hebrew], in The Elections in Israel 2013, ed. Michal Shamir (Jerusalem: The Israeli Democracy Institute, forthcoming).

^10. Uri Orbach, “Worried There May be Optimism,” Besheva, December 16, 2012.

^11. “Gush Emunim: A Movement for the Rejuvenation of Zionist Fulfillment” (an early Gush Emunim pamphlet, n.d. [1974]), 1.

^12. For example: Rabbi Zvi Tau, Those Who Hope in God, Will Renew Their Strength (Jerusalem: For Eye to Eye They See, 2005); Rabbi Zvi Tau, And They Shall Face One Another, A Collection of Religious Articles about the Activity of the Panim-el-Panim Organization (2005); Rabbi Zvi Tau, Our Path in This Time, Principles of Religious-Zionist Rabbis (2006).

^13. Elyashiv Reichner, There of All Places – The Story of the Social Settlers [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Yediot Sfarim, 2013).

^14. The day commemorating Israel's victory in the 1967 War.

^15. Anat Roth, Not at Any Cost – From Gush Katif to Amona: The Story behind the Struggle over the Land of Israel (Tel Aviv: Yediot Sfarim, 2014), 30–41; Anat Roth, “Theories of Fundamentalism versus Reality Test: The Torani-Stream of Religious-Zionism and its Struggles against the Disengagement Plan and the Destruction of Houses in Amona” [in Hebrew] (PhD diss., Bar Ilan University, 2011), 12–19; Udi Lebel, “‘The Disengagement’: An Attempt at Elite Exchange in the IDF and in the Israeli Society” [in Hebrew], in In the Shadow of the Disengagement: Strategic Dialogue in Crisis, ed. Haim Misgav and Udi Lebel (Jerusalem: Carmel and the Academic College of Netanya, 2008), 207–32; Eli Avraham, Behind Media Marginality – Coverage of Social Groups and Places in the Israeli Press (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003); Eithan Orkibi, “Judea and Samaria in Israeli Documentary Cinema: Displacement, Oriental Space and the Cultural Construction of Colonized Landscapes,” Israel Affairs 21, no. 3 (2015): forthcoming.

^16. Roth, “Theories of Fundamentalism,” 237–8; 229–30.

^17. Uri Orbach, “The Good to Media” [in Hebrew], Nekuda 106 (January 1997): 12–13. In Hebrew, the title plays off a well-known phrase calling on the best youth to join the Paratroopers Brigade.

^18. Lebel, “The Disengagement”; Roth, Not at Any Cost, 230-267; Roth, “Theories of Fundamentalism,” 100–127.

^19. Meiron Rapoport, “Shaul's Lamentation,” Haaretz, December 8, 2005.

^20. The Torani Branch relates to the students and successors of Rabbis Kook. For more information about their ‘Mamlachtic Perception’ see Roth, Not at Any Cost, 43–84; Roth, “Theories of Fundamentalism,” 33–59.

^21. Yair Sheleg, The New Religious [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Keter, 2000), 54–93.

^22. Rav Shagar, Tablets and Broken Tablets [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Yediot Sfarim and Rav Shagar Institute, 2013), 373.

^23. Yonah Goodman, “Enough (Nullifying) the National Religious Sector” [in Hebrew], Be'Ayin Hinuchit 123 (April 2013). It stands to reason that this process was greatly helped by the development of the Torani Pre-Army Preparation (‘Mechina’) Programs. For further information about the ‘Mechina’ Programmes see: Elisheva Rosman-Stollman, “Religion and the Military as Greedy Frameworks: Religious Zionism and the Israel Defense Forces” (PhD diss., Bar-Ilan University, 2005), 148–71.

^24. As of April 2013, ‘My Israel’ is one of the largest social media groups in Israel with over 100,000 members.

^25. Mishkefet means binoculars in Hebrew.

^26. Reichner, There of All Places.

^27. Asher Cohen, “Religious Zionism and the National Religious Party in the 2003 Elections: An Attempt to Respond to the Challenge of Religious, Ethnic and Political Schism,” in The Elections in Israel 2003, ed. Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2005), 187–213.

^28. Anat Roth, The Secret of its Strength: The Yesha Council and its Campaign Against the Security Fence and the Disengagement Plan [in Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute, 2005).

^29. Asher Cohen, “The Religious Parties in the 2006 Elections,” Israel Affairs 13, no. 2 (2007): 325–45.

^30. Asher Cohen, “The Splintered Camp: Religious Zionist Parties in the 2009 Elections,” in The Elections in Israel 2009 (see note 27), 69–92.

^31. Rav Shlomo Aviner, “An All-Israeli Party,” Be'Ahava Ube'Emuna, June 1, 2012.

^32. Moshe Feiglin, “The Knesset Moved to the Likud Central Committee,” Besheva, September 29, 2005.

^33. June 2009, where he committed to the two-state solution.

^34. Uri Ariel, “Don't Wait for the Primaries,” Makor Rishon, May 4, 2012.

^35. Shalom, “Dachaf Institute Survey.”

^36. Uri Orbach, “When a Truly Successful Candidate Comes from Outside (the Party), I'm Willing to Give Up (my Seat),” Besheva, May 24, 2012.

^37. Ofer Kenig, “Election and Dismissal of Party Chairmen: Israel, a Comparative Study” [in Hebrew], in Candidate Selection in Israel: Reality and Ideal, ed. Gideon Rahat (Tel Aviv: The Institute for the Study of Society and Economics in Israel, 2006), 37–58.

^38. In one-third of the settlements in Judea and Samaria where voting booths were set up, Shaked received the majority of the votes. In the more Torani settlements, like Alon Moreh and Eli, she gained the highest score.

^39. Naftali Bennett, “No More Camps – Working Together to Be in the Next Government,” Besheva, November 8, 2012; Dvora Ginsburg, “Bennett and Orlev – Decision Time,” Besheva, November 1, 2012.

^40. At the Hebrew University Campus the Habayit Hayehudi received 16.4% of the votes, at Tel Aviv University 8%, at Sapir College 23.3% and at the Interdisciplinary Centre in Herzliya 18.3%.

^41. News Broadcast, Channel 2 (Israel), December 18, 2012.

^42. Orbach, “Worried There May be Optimism.”

^43. Emmanuel Shilo, “The Force to the Right of Netanyahu,” Besheva, January 17, 2013.

^44. Naftali Bennett, “Assuming Command,” Besheva, May 24, 2012.

^45. Naftali Bennett, Election advertisement: “Taking Command, Registering!” (June 2012).

^46. Naftali Bennett, The Israel Stability Initiative: A Practical Outline for Israeli–Palestinian Conflict Management, February 2012.

^47. Naftali Bennett, “We're Going to Go Back to Being a Political Force,” Makor Rishon, November 2, 2012.

^48. Bennett, “No More Camps.”

^49. Refers to low-ranking non-commissioned officers in the IDF charged with seeing to it that the religious soldiers' ritual needs are met

^50. Bennett, “Assuming Command.”

^51. See television interview with Nissim Mishal in “Mash'al Cham,” Channel 2 (December 20, 2012). As a result of intense public criticism following the interview, Bennett backed down from his previous statement, and clarified that he would request that his commander exempt him from the mission, though he would not directly refuse orders.

^52. Ari Shavit, “The Story of the Success of Bennett, the Failure of the Left,” Haaretz, December 28, 2012.

^53. Avichai Boaron, “B is Bait Leumi,” Maaynei Ha'Yeshua, November 24, 2012.

^54. Being a combat soldier in the IDF is perceived in Israel at large, and among the religious Zionists in particular, as the ultimate symbol of Zionism and “Yisraeliyut” (being Israeli), and contributes greatly to the popularity of Israeli leaders vying for public support. A strong example is Ehud Barak's political campaign. (Ben Caspit and Ilan Kfir, Ehud Barak: Israel's Number 1 Soldier [in Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Alpha, 1998).) Likewise, this isn't the first time the NRP has been led by a former combat officer with the hope that this would lead to increased popularity. In 2002, the NRP was led by Brigadier General (Res.) Efi Eitam. Bennett's advantage lay in his combination of qualities.

^55. Asher Cohen, “Religion and Patriotism between Acceptance and Opposition: Shattered Visions in Religious-Zionism” [in Hebrew], in Patriotism: Homeland Love, ed. Avner Ben-Amos and Daniel Bar-Tal (Tel Aviv: Dionun and Hakibutz HaMeuchad, 2004), 468. For a discussion on the impact of economic status on the political participation of the religious Zionists see: Nissim Leon, “The Secret of its Weakness: The Religious Zionism versus the Disengagement Plan” [in Hebrew], in In the Shadow of the Disengagement: Strategic Dialogue in Crisis, ed. Haim Misgav and Udi Lebel (Jerusalem: Carmel and the Academic College of Netanya, 2008), 269–84; Nissim Leon, “Religion, Social Class and Political Action of the Religious Zionism in Israel” [in Hebrew], Democratic Culture 12 (2009): 105–44.

^56. Bennett, “Assuming Command.”

^57. Asher Cohen, “The Crocheted Skullcap and What it Represents: Multiple Identities in Religious-Zionism” [in Hebrew], Akadamot 15 (2004): 24–5.

^58. Efrat Shapira-Rozenberg, “Don't Call Me ‘Torani,’” Ynet, February 4, 2009, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3666727,00.html (accessed January 1, 2014).

^59. Tzviki Bar-Chai, “One Camp, One Flag,” Makor Rishon, November 16, 2012.

^60. Nachi Eyal, “The True Moment of the Religious Zionism,” Me'at Min Ha'Or, November 23, 2012.

^61. Cohen, “Something New Begins.”

^62. Ibid.

^63. MK Nissan Slomiansky, Interview (April 9, 2013).

^64. Cohen, “Something New Begins.”

^65. The highlight of the de-legitimization campaign was a series of advertisements paid for by Likud activists in which Bennett is seen behind barbed wire next to the caption “The Jewish Ghetto headed by Bennett”.

^66. Hazki Ezra, “Bennett to Netanyahu: Your are Responsible for the Disgraceful Clip,” INN, October 10, 2013, http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/249791 (accessed September 1, 2014).

^67. “Naftali Bennett, Israel's New Rightwing Star,” France 24, December 25, 2012; David Remnick, “The Party Faithful,” New Yorker, January 16, 2013; Nick Meo, “Israel's New Political Star Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home Party Determined to Stop Palestinian State,’ Telegraph, January 19, 2013.

^68. Menachem Rahat, “The Unifying in the ‘HaBayit HaYehudi’ is Greater than the Dividing,” Matzav Ha'Ruach, January 18, 2013.

^69. Cohen, “Something New Begins.”

^70. Head of the secular party ‘Yesh Atid’.

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Anat Roth

Anat Roth (PhD) is an Israel-based independent scholar and author of two books on Israeli politics.