KEDUMIM, West Financial institution — As Benjamin Netanyahu makes an attempt to kind a brand new authorities in Israel, one possible member of his cupboard has drawn explicit concern in Washington and in Israeli safety circles: Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right lawyer angling to steer Israel’s {powerful} Protection Ministry.
Mr. Smotrich, 42, is a former settler activist with a historical past of hard-line positions, together with support for segregation in Israeli maternity wards; governing Israel in response to the legal guidelines of the Torah, the primary 5 books of the Hebrew Bible; and backing Jewish property builders who gained’t promote to Arabs.
Mr. Smotrich has described himself as a homophobe, refuses to shake women’s hands for non secular causes and has stated it was a “mistake” that Israel’s founders didn’t expel extra Arabs when the nation was based.
Now, Mr. Smotrich needs to be protection minister, the second-most-powerful place in authorities, and one that will give him oversight over the Israeli occupation of the West Financial institution and airstrikes on Gaza. It will additionally make him a central level of contact between Israel and america, which offers the nation with greater than $3 billion in navy help every year.
His far-right ally, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who’s in search of to run Israel’s police forces, could have attracted extra media consideration. However Mr. Smotrich’s ideological focus, organizational self-discipline and long-term imaginative and prescient — coupled together with his need for the Protection Ministry — have made international diplomats and home opponents worry his rise as a lot as Mr. Ben-Gvir’s.
Like Mr. Ben-Gvir, Mr. Smotrich needs Israel to annex the occupied West Financial institution, ending any hope of a Palestinian state. However each his critics and allies really feel Mr. Smotrich has a clearer thought about find out how to make that occur.
“From the attitude of stopping Palestinian statehood, his agenda is extra of a menace,” stated Ofer Zalzberg, director of the Center East Program on the Herbert C. Kelman Institute, a Jerusalem-based analysis group.
“He thinks a Palestinian state remains to be doable, and for this reason he’s investing a lot in attempting to stop it,” Mr. Zalzberg stated.
Mr. Smotrich’s rise highlights the rising function performed inside Israeli society by non secular ultranationalists, who emerged because the third-largest bloc within the Israeli Parliament within the basic election earlier this month — their strongest exhibiting ever — and who’re more and more reaching the highest ranks of the safety institution and the police.
Mr. Smotrich’s ambitions additionally underline the troublesome steadiness that Mr. Netanyahu should now strike as he tries to finalize his authorities.
On Tuesday, Israel’s Parliament was sworn in, formally giving Mr. Netanyahu’s bloc a majority coalition and bringing it a step nearer to energy.
However earlier than he can formally re-enter workplace, Mr. Netanyahu wants to steer his coalition companions to comply with the make-up of his cupboard and a shared coverage platform.
What to Know About Israel’s Newest Election
The nation held its fifth election in lower than 4 years on Nov. 1.
One of many remaining hurdles is a disagreement about Mr. Smotrich’s function. Mr. Netanyahu has to placate Mr. Smotrich, with out whom he has no parliamentary majority. However Mr. Netanyahu additionally wants to think about worldwide response, significantly from the U.S. authorities, which might in all probability balk at having to work so intently with somebody with such excessive views.
“The administration is contemplating whether or not or not it might be in keeping with President Biden’s emphasis on selling democratic values to cope with Bezalel Smotrich and others in his get together,” stated Daniel B. Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and distinguished fellow on the Atlantic Council, a U.S.-based analysis group.
Present U.S. officers haven’t publicly mentioned Mr. Smotrich by identify. However because the Israeli information media more and more presents Mr. Smotrich as a candidate for the Protection Ministry, the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem has stated it’s intently watching occasions.
“Clearly we’re keenly centered on ministry appointments,” stated Thomas R. Nides, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, in a textual content message. “Particularly the minister of protection, who’s a serious interlocutor with us.”
Amos Gilad, a former chief of Israeli navy intelligence, informed reporters on Saturday that Mr. Smotrich can be “a serious catastrophe” as protection minister if he refused to reasonable his views after taking workplace.
Mr. Smotrich’s workplace declined an interview, as did his spokesman. However his allies painting him as a diligent public servant whose critics misrepresent him.
“I’m satisfied that Bezalel Smotrich will serve all of the folks,” stated Hananel Durani, the mayor of Kedumim, the Israeli settlement within the northern West Financial institution the place Mr. Smotrich lives.
“He has a sure picture within the media,” stated Mr. Durani, a member of Mr. Smotrich’s get together, Spiritual Zionism. However in actuality, Mr. Durani stated, he was a conscientious man who “listens, learns and takes choices rapidly.”
Mr. Smotrich is commonly talked about in the identical context as Mr. Ben-Gvir, one other far-right politician hoping for a senior safety function within the new authorities. However although a part of the identical far-right alliance, the lads come from totally different backgrounds and rabbinical faculties — and in reality lead separate events.
The son of a right-wing rabbi of European descent, Mr. Smotrich grew up on a settlement within the occupied West Financial institution and studied non secular legislation for a lot longer than his ally.
Mr. Ben-Gvir grew up in a much less observant surroundings, in a household of Center Japanese origin. He spent his childhood in a middle-class suburb west of Jerusalem and solely moved to a settlement within the West Financial institution as a younger grownup.
Whereas Mr. Ben-Gvir’s earthy gusto was the driving pressure behind their alliance’s success within the current election, Mr. Smotrich displayed the clearer roadmap.
It was Mr. Smotrich who produced detailed plans to restrict the Supreme Courtroom’s means to test the ability of elected lawmakers. Whereas Mr. Ben-Gvir expressed looser concepts about accentuating Israel’s Jewish character, Mr. Smotrich set out a sharper program for doing so — publicly opposing the group of soccer video games on the Jewish sabbath, for instance.
“Smotrich is coming from a spot that’s way more outlined, ideologically and theologically,” stated Mr. Zalzberg, the analyst. “Whereas Ben-Gvir has moved into an area that’s way more imprecise.”
All through their careers, it has additionally been Mr. Smotrich who has proven the larger organizational self-discipline, and the larger means to work throughout the system.
Just like the overwhelming majority of Israelis, Mr. Smotrich served as a conscript within the Israeli Military, briefly taking a minor administrative function after finding out Jewish teachings for a number of years. In contrast, Mr. Ben-Gvir was barred from military service as a result of he was deemed too extremist.
Each males are attorneys. However whereas Mr. Ben-Gvir labored largely independently, as a protection lawyer for Jews accused of violence and extremism, Mr. Smotrich harnessed his authorized experience to discovered a pro-settler nongovernmental group that labored systematically to cement Israeli management of the West Financial institution.
Whereas Mr. Ben-Gvir has a number of legal convictions, together with for racist incitement and help for a terrorist group, Mr. Smotrich was launched with out cost in 2005 after protesting in opposition to the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Smotrich even labored in an earlier Netanyahu authorities, albeit in a extra junior capability. In 2019 and 2020, he served as transport minister, profitable plaudits from allies and critics for advancing highway tasks in each the West Financial institution and Israel itself.
“The group that Ben-Gvir is most centered on, and feels that he must cope with and rein in, are the Arabs,” stated Prof. Yehudah Mirsky, an skilled on Jewish political thought at Brandeis College.
“For Smotrich, it’s the state — the state is the true downside,” Professor Mirsky added.
Each males are non secular Zionists: They imagine that the land in what’s now Israel and the occupied territories was promised to Jews by God.
However they arrive from totally different rabbinical faculties throughout the motion, giving the 2 males barely totally different theological underpinnings, in response to Daniella Weiss, a settler chief and longtime neighbor and ally of Mr. Smotrich.
Mr. Ben-Gvir’s present beliefs are arduous to pin down, however as a youthful man he was an unabashed follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane, an Israeli-American extremist who believed in defending Jews by expelling Arabs from Israel.
Mr. Smotrich’s lodestar is Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, one of many forefathers of non secular Zionism, who positioned larger emphasis on establishing Jewish rule over the land, and was much less involved about what number of Arabs lived there.
Rabbi Kahane believed that “so long as we’ve got enemies on the land of Israel, there’ll all the time be issues,” Ms. Weiss stated. His “first act was to see to it that the enemies don’t reside right here,” she stated.
Followers of Rabbi Kook, like Mr. Smotrich and Ms. Weiss, imagine that “from the act of redeeming the land, every part in our life will profit,” stated Ms. Weiss.
“If we’ve got extra land and if we’ve got extra settlements,” Ms. Weiss stated, “then the Arabs will perceive that they won’t have right here a Palestinian state.”
Reporting was contributed by Myra Noveck from Kedumim, West Financial institution; by Gabby Sobelman from Rehovot, Israel; and by Jonathan Rosen from Jerusalem.