Al Mayadeen English

  • Ar
  • Es
  • x
Al Mayadeen English

Slogan

  • News
    • Politics
    • Economy
    • Sports
    • Arts&Culture
    • Health
    • Miscellaneous
    • Technology
    • Environment
  • Articles
    • Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Blog
    • Features
  • Videos
    • NewsFeed
    • Video Features
    • Explainers
    • TV
    • Digital Series
  • Infographs
  • In Pictures
  • • LIVE
News
  • Politics
  • Economy
  • Sports
  • Arts&Culture
  • Health
  • Miscellaneous
  • Technology
  • Environment
Articles
  • Opinion
  • Analysis
  • Blog
  • Features
Videos
  • NewsFeed
  • Video Features
  • Explainers
  • TV
  • Digital Series
Infographs
In Pictures
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Asia-Pacific
  • Europe
  • Latin America
  • MENA
  • Palestine
  • US & Canada
BREAKING
Israeli Army Radio's diplomatic correspondent quoted a senior Israeli official as saying: So he [Trump] decided to cut off contact. That might still change, but that’s the situation right now
Israeli Army Radio's diplomatic correspondent quoted a senior Israeli official as saying: Trump’s circle told him [Dermer] that Netanyahu was manipulating him, and there’s nothing Trump hates more than being portrayed as someone being played
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: Meetings between the Israelis, Egyptians, and Qataris are all centered around the Israeli proposal, which does not guarantee an end to the war [on Gaza]
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: “Israel” is threatening to expand the ground offensive if Hamas rejects the proposal
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: Hamas rejects the Israeli proposal, viewing it as failing to guarantee an end to the war
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: “Israel” is sticking to its proposal, and insists there is no alternative offer on the table for negotiation
Senior Palestinian official to Al Mayadeen: The meetings between the Israelis and the Egyptians and Qataris all revolve around the Israeli proposal
The administration was clearly looking for an off-ramp for this campaign against Ansar Allah, NBC News reports, citing US official
Trump's operation against Ansar Allah cost more than $1 billion, NBC News reports, citing US official
White smoke signals new pope elected: AFP

The reality that is 'Israel': An Éclat of messianism and apocalypse, shocking and paralysing the West

  • Alastair Crooke Alastair Crooke
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 6 May 2023 20:36
  • 6 Shares
6 Min Read

Whereas Western figures consistently claim that the radical Right national-religious movement does not “represent Judaism”, the other, equally authentic side to the Judaic ‘story’ is the obverse.

  • x
  • What many in America did not perceive was how this newly globalised coastal society, though prosperous, still was in search for a new raison d’être -- a new ideological foundation. They leaned to the (secular) Right.
    What many in America did not perceive was how this newly globalised coastal society, though prosperous, still was in search for a new raison d’être -- a new ideological foundation. They leaned to the (secular) Right.

Those who imagined that the anti-‘Judicial reform’ mass protests in "Israel" (widely hailed across the West, under the misleading banner of liberal ‘democracy’ versus ‘illiberal autocracy’) had squashed government reform plans, should take note of Thursday’s massive ‘no compromise’ protests by the Israeli Right, settlers and national-religious forces.

The struggle ain’t over -- it’s just drawing breath.

Finance Minister Smotrich told the crowds: "We will not give up on a Jewish state. We will not give up on Israeli democracy - and no one will steal the term ‘democracy’ from us. [Adding], The people demand legal reform and they will get legal reform…They [the opposition] have the media; they have the tycoons who fund demonstrations: But we have the people." 

If the pressures are not bending the ground forces, they are squeezing Netanyahu’s ‘pips’: There wasn’t a mention of judicial reform by Netanyahu; he embraced the masses of demonstrators, whilst keeping ‘the issue’ at a safe arm’s distance. The Right demonstrators, however, were having nothing of it. They demand revolution. It is a call to redefine Judaism in a radical framing.

But the ‘revolution’ must wait. With the opening of the Knesset’s summer session on Sunday, the government will be focused on having to get a state budget passed. The deadline is 29 May. By law, if the budget isn’t passed by then, the Knesset is automatically dissolved. Although none of the parties has an interest in dissolution, talks likely will go down the wire.

Equally controversial will be legislation altering the parameters by which the ultra-Orthodox become exempt from military service – this is complicated by being entwined with the Supreme Court controversy as the Haredi parties fear the Court overriding parliament. The means to bypass this prospect -- through a new Basic Law -- are being studied.

The West affects deep shock at events, which exposes and highlights the tension between Western liberal values and its (liberal) understanding of Judaism itself. Many American Jews, including major Jewish organizations, seem stunned into silence. 

Shaul Magid, Professor of Jewish Studies at Dartmouth college, writes:  

“Why were they so shocked by the outcome”? For, whilst previous elections illustrated a decidedly rightward turn of the Israeli electorate, the last election produced a decisive win for the establishment of a stable, even strong, coalition of religious and far-right parties? What did liberal Western Jewry expect?

"For most American Jews who are Zionists, this election result was never supposed to happen", Professor Magid frankly observes. 

Related News

Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem could succeed Pope Francis, bring deeper Vatican involvement in the region

The hero who overthrows tyranny: The path of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam

"Whilst Israel always had a substantial right-wing current - most American Zionists believed it to be essentially a liberal country that could keep its right-wing factions at bay - and that American values and Israeli values are, if not identical, then certainly compatible. Liberal Zionism in America is built on that very premise."

Those “who were paying close attention, however, should have known that this right-wing takeover was not an out-of-the-blue, sudden event, but a gradual, transformational shift that has been in the works for decades”. 

One factor identified by Magid for its ‘shock’ is that American Jews have been so committed to [unreflectively] defending "Israel" against its progressive detractors that many find it difficult to assimilate just how different is the "Israel" of today, from that of their imagination.

"Even after the Knesset passed the 2018 Jewish Nation-State Law – an evident ‘wake-up call’, which articulated very clearly that Israel was the nation-state of the Jewish people alone - and by implication, not that of all its citizens (i.e. Palestinian Israelis), most American Jews remained steadfast, in their position of Israel being the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’."

What are the reasons for this shift? Part of it, has to do with the increased influence of national-religious sentiment as the Occupation grew into a broad-based subculture of Israeli society. The settler movement is more than simply the aggregate of those living in settlement homes: It includes an intellectual and educational framework; a vision of Zionism as Greater "Israel" - or of what Chaim Gans calls, “proprietary Zionism” – i.e. one which sees the land -- from the river to the sea -- belonging exclusively to the Jews.

Other factors were ‘occupation fatigue’, which created a kind of ideological vacuum that was filled by nationalism, which drifted into an embrace of ever more draconian measures to secure "Israel’s" safety from both internal and external threats.  Yet another factor is "Israel’s" stance at the forefront of the neo-liberal movement, adopting for "Israel" the moniker of the ‘Start-Up Nation’.

This firstly -- for those Israelis who traditionally would have been on the Israeli Left -- instead became prosperous. The ‘new rich’, largely secular Jews, whose ideological commitments formerly would have been expected to be of the Left, instead became cosmopolitanist and less invested in "Israel’s" leftist political movements. They were more interested in the acquisition of wealth and financial success. 

This led, secondly, to a vacuum forming in the collective identity which has been filled by the rise of the religious-nationalist Judaic ideology. A shift that gave many Israelis a newfound sense of collective self-hood (albeit, one very different from the erstwhile, leftist one). 

This identity was not limited to religious Jews, but it also affected secular Jews who were living the neo-liberal cosmopolitan lifestyle, but experiencing a void of belonging. The lifestyle did not contain the identitarian glue that had bonded their more socialist parents and grandparents.

But what many in America did not perceive was how this newly globalised coastal society, though prosperous, still was in search for a new raison d’être -- a new ideological foundation. They leaned to the (secular) Right.

Finally, Professor Magid reaches to the Western ‘blind spot’: Whereas Western figures consistently claim that the radical Right national-religious movement does not “represent Judaism”, which, on their reading “is liberal, humanistic, and focuses on justice and equality”, the other, equally authentic side to the Judaic ‘story’ is the obverse -- it is messianic, mystical, revolutionary and, frankly said, Apocalyptic.

This latter vein now occupies key ministerial posts in the Netanyahu government. There is no way the Biden Administration, so bereft of empathy, will be able to manage this ‘alien’ occurrence crashing into their literal, interest-based ‘world’. It is wholly dissonant to their framework.

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.
  • Israel
  • Palestine
  • Israeli occupation
Alastair Crooke

Alastair Crooke

Director of Conflicts Forum; Former Senior British Diplomat; Author.

Most Read

All
Throughout Operation Prosperity Guardian, current and former US military and intelligence officials expressed disquiet at the enormous “cost offset” involved in battling Ansar Allah. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab El-Hajj)

Ansar Allah triumphant: US facing Red Sea defeat again

  • Opinion
  • 3 May 2025
While Salams is intended to be for Muslims seeking marriage, the other companies owned by Match Group are seen as encouraging casual relationships like OK Cupid and Tinder. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab el-Hajj)

Selling Muslim marriage app Salams to the Zionist pornography complex

  • Opinion
  • 27 Apr 2025
"Israel" appears to be the only place in the world where there are actual demonstrations defending rapists as national heroes precisely because of their crimes. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Batoul Chamas)

'Israeli pride' - Celebrating rape in the Zionist entity

  • Opinion
  • 4 May 2025
The hero who overthrows tyranny: The path of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam

The hero who overthrows tyranny: The path of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam

  • Blog
  • 2 May 2025

Coverage

All
The Ummah's Martyrs

More from this writer

All
The Nakedness of EU ‘Geo-political’ Ambitions Will Be Revealed - As the Ukraine War Melts Away

The Nakedness of EU ‘Geo-political’ Ambitions Will Be Revealed - As the Ukraine War Melts Away

The Slow-Motion Advance to the Edge of the Abyss

The Slow-Motion Advance to the Edge of the Abyss

Already, "Israel" has the White House committed to support an Israeli military operation against Hezbollah. (Al Mayadeen English; Illustrated by Zeinab El-Hajj)

Does 'Israel' want war?

The European Mutiny: The Consequences are Just Beginning

The European Mutiny: The Consequences are Just Beginning

Al Mayadeen English

Al Mayadeen is an Arab Independent Media Satellite Channel.

All Rights Reserved

  • x
  • Privacy Policy
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Authors
Android
iOS