The Ascendance of Anti-Pluralist Ethno-National Populism in Israel

• In Event: Politics Beyond the Left-Right Spectrum

Abstract

In November 2019 Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was indicted for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three different cases. Netanyahu responded to his indictment in a series of speeches full of classic populist tropes: The indictment was nothing less than an attempted coup d’etat, which the police and the prosecutors carried out under pressure from the “Left” and the media; his enemies are trying to topple him judicially, since they cannot defeat him democratically; but “the public” has no confidence in the law enforcement system and stands with him.
After three general election campaigns in one year, 2019-2020, Netanyahu failed to assemble a governing coalition which would have enabled him to form a stable government, primarily because one right-wing party refused to join his government while he was under indictment. So after the third round he had to form a dysfunctional government of national unity with the main opposition party. This government has now fallen and new elections have been called for March 2021.
In spite of Netanyahu’s repeated failure to form a government, and the national unity government’s inept handling of the Corona crisis (except for the vaccination campaign), his support within his own Likud party remains solid. Only one Likud leader dared to challenge him in a primary election, and was defeated with a 72:28 ratio. The Likud leadership has remained loyal to Netanyahu because so has his “base,” made up mainly of working- and lower-middle-class Mizrachim (Jews originating in Moslem countries) and counting about 35% of the electorate, which did not believe or else did not care that its leader was allegedly involved in major corruption. This is typical of populist movements – total loyalty to the leader and indifference to allegations of corruption.
The power of Israel’s ethno-national populism, which dates back to 1977, has persisted through bad and good economic times for its base. My argument is that, unlike the US and several European countries, in Israel ethno-national populism does not feed on economic deprivation but primarily on two political emotions: resentment against the Labor party, which governed at the time of the Mizrachim’s arrival in the country, and fear of the Palestinians.

Author

• Yoav Peled, Tel Aviv University