Few figures in contemporary Israeli politics provoke as immediate a reaction abroad as Bezalel Smotrich. Israel’s finance minister, a minister within the Defense Ministry, and leader of HaTzionut HaDatit — the Religious Zionist Party — he is routinely portrayed as a figure of Israel’s “far right.”

The label is not without justification. His positions on the Palestinians, the settlements and the future of Judea and Samaria are among the most radical represented in mainstream Israeli politics.

But the label alone does not explain the man or his political vision.

Smotrich is neither simply a provocateur nor a populist firebrand. Even his opponents readily acknowledge his intelligence, capacity for hard work, command of policy and determination. Above all, he is an ideologue: a man convinced that he possesses a coherent vision of what Israel should become, and who methodically uses the instruments of government to try to make that vision a reality.

It is precisely this combination of political effectiveness and ideological radicalism that explains both his influence and the fears he inspires.

A party that does not represent all Religious Zionists

HaTzionut HaDatit is the heir to several political movements that emerged from Israel’s religious-Zionist right. Under Smotrich’s leadership, it has gradually established itself as the movement’s most nationalist and ideologically driven political expression.

In the 2022 election, Smotrich joined forces with Itamar Ben-Gvir and a small conservative religious faction to run on a joint ticket. The alliance won 14 seats in the Knesset, seven of them going to Smotrich’s party. The electoral partnership was subsequently dissolved, leaving Smotrich and Ben-Gvir at the helm of two separate — and now competing — political forces.

The party’s name, however, can be misleading. It by no means represents the entire Religious Zionist community in Israel.

That community is far more diverse: moderate religious Israelis living in the major cities, settlement residents, academics, army officers, entrepreneurs, teachers, Likud voters and former supporters of Naftali Bennett. Many share Smotrich’s attachment to Jewish tradition, military service, the Land of Israel and a state that more explicitly embraces its Jewish identity, without necessarily subscribing to his entire political program.

HaTzionut HaDatit therefore represents a particularly ideological and nationalist wing of this constituency. Its platform is coherent: accelerated settlement development, opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state, a stronger assertion of the Jewish character of the state, a hard line on security, curbing the power of the Supreme Court, and a broadly free-market approach to the economy.

A man of doctrine rather than communication

The comparison with Itamar Ben-Gvir is inevitable — but misleading.

Ben-Gvir is a remarkably gifted political animal. He understands social media, popular emotions and the power of public confrontation. Smotrich operates differently. He prefers plans, legislation, budgets, regulations and lasting institutional change.

The difference might be summarized this way: Ben-Gvir seeks — often successfully — to shift the boundaries of what can legitimately be said in Israeli political discourse; Smotrich seeks to change the structures of the state.

His........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)