What has gone so wrong for the right in Israel?

Much has been written about what happened to the Israeli left and the peace camp, and what remains of them. Where did they disappear to? Why have they lost ground to the right for so long? The answer lies in a long transformation of Israeli politics, which the forthcoming election may yet modestly reverse with some resurgence of the center-left and the left.
For much of the Zionist movement before the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and throughout the state’s first three decades, the left was the dominant political force. That dominance ended in 1977, when Menachem Begin’s Likud won its first general election. By then, Labour had already entered a gradual ideological and institutional decline, compounded by corruption. One should add, however, that compared with the mismanagement and corruption associated with some of today’s right-wing administrations, those earlier failings almost pale into insignificance.
The desire for political change that brought Likud to power in 1977 was therefore understandable. What few anticipated, however, was not merely the rise of the right, but the emergence of an increasingly nationalist, religious, messianic, and anti-democratic right. This reflected deeper changes within Israeli society that had been gathering pace since the Six-Day War in 1967 and were later reinforced by the collapse of the Oslo peace process.
It was the Six-Day War, and the overwhelming military victory of 1967, that began the transformation of Israeli politics and society beyond recognition. Israel suddenly found itself occupying vast territories that temporarily quadrupled the area under its control. Most significant was the occupation of the West Bank, where many sites hold profound religious and historical significance for the Jewish people, including the Old City of Jerusalem and the Western Wall.
For many Israelis, especially within the religious-Zionist movement, the war represented far more than a military triumph. It awakened the darker elements of the movement. Zionism was originally conceived as a movement for Jewish self-determination and desire for a haven where Jews could live free from persecution while preserving their religion and culture. For some, the 1967 victory appeared to be nothing less than divine confirmation that the biblical land of Israel belonged exclusively to the Jewish people.
By the end of the war, influential figures within the religious-Zionist rabbinical establishment, and, to a lesser extent, among their politicians, no longer viewed the newly occupied territories primarily as strategic assets or bargaining chips for future peace negotiations. Instead, they saw them as the beginning of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.
In recent years, ideas that once would have been dismissed as political fantasy have entered mainstream discussion. Some politicians and activists openly advocate for re-establishing Jewish settlements in Gaza and even extending Israeli sovereignty into parts of southern Lebanon or territories seized by the Israeli military in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime. Fifty years ago, it would have seemed equally implausible to imagine that more than 700,000 Jewish settlers would be living in East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, or that many Palestinians would face persistent intimidation and violence from extremist Jewish settlers who often appear to act with near impunity. Yet today, these realities have become part of everyday life. 

The answer lies in a long transformation of Israeli politics, which the forthcoming election may yet modestly reverse.

Yossi Mekelberg

The tragic irony is that the religious-Zionist movement originated in comparatively moderate streams of Zionism, represented by parties such as Hamizrachi and Hapoel Hamizrachi. Figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir or Bezalel Smotrich would have found little place within their leadership. Over time, however, the convergence of security concerns with theological claims produced a potent combination of ultra-nationalism and religious messianism. This also attracted more militant and thuggish elements, fostering an ideology characterized by Jewish supremacism that rejects not only Palestinian self-determination but, in some cases, even the legitimacy of a permanent Palestinian presence in the land.
If in the past the notion of “voluntary migration” for Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza existed, now this serves as a euphemism for forced displacement and has entered mainstream right-wing political discourse, including within the governing Likud party. Compared with previous generations, today’s right is more ideologically rigid, more religious, less pragmatic, increasingly dismissive of liberal-democratic institutions and also more willing to employ inflammatory rhetoric and, in some instances, resorts to political intimidation and violence.
This is not to romanticize the old right. It bears considerable responsibility for enabling the forces that currently dominate Israeli politics. Successive governments of both left and right accommodated the settler movement, with a combination of reluctance to confront settlers and a degree of admiration for settlers as modern-day pioneers, which they are not. Whether through naivety or willful blindness, many failed to recognize that parts of the movement were increasingly influenced by Kahanist ideology and religious extremism, making them progressively difficult to restrain.
Nevertheless, the older Israeli right differed in important respects from today’s. It broadly accepted the principles of liberal democracy, respected the separation of powers, and recognized the authority of the courts even when it strongly disagreed with judicial decisions. It also understood that there were political and moral red lines that were not to be crossed. It challenged international opinion when it believed, rightly or wrongly, doing so was necessary, but not simply as a matter of defiance, but also as a matter of ideology.
After all, it was Menachem Begin who signed the peace treaty with Egypt and accepted Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula in exchange for peace. It was Ariel Sharon, despite his close association with the settlement movement, who orchestrated Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza and was reportedly considering further withdrawals from parts of the West Bank before his incapacitating illness. This was also the right that launched the 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Yet it nevertheless established a state commission of inquiry after the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which led to Sharon’s dismissal as defense minister. By contrast, Benjamin Netanyahu has consistently resisted establishing a comparable state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the attacks of Oct. 7 and their aftermath.
And it was the right whose members walked out of the Knesset when Meir Kahane rose to speak, unlike Ben-Gvir, who displayed in his living room a portrait of Baruch Goldstein, the murderous coward who killed 29 Muslim worshipers in Hebron. It was also Begin who is remembered for saying, “There are judges in Jerusalem,” affirming the legitimacy of Israel’s judiciary despite his disagreements with it. It was a right whose members could still engage in civilized political debate and reach compromises when they believed the national interest required it.
Very little of that tradition remains. It has been eclipsed by the personality cult surrounding Netanyahu, often described as “Bibism,” and by increasingly anti-democratic, expansionist, and ethnonationalist forces within the broader right. Whether this transformation proves lasting will ultimately be decided by Israeli voters in October.

• Yossi Mekelberg is a professor of international relations and an associate fellow of the MENA Program at Chatham House.
X: @YMekelberg