Author: Ryan Bohl
Affiliation: Stratfor
Organization/Publisher: Stratfor
Date/Place: December 4, 2020/USA
Type of Literature: Article
Word Count: 1182
Keywords: Israel, Middle East, Right-wing politics, Nationalism, Palestine
Brief:
This article contemplates over what direction Israel’s right-wing, nationalist youth base will take the country towards. Israel’s political parties like Likud, Shas, and Yamina are already nationalistic but their outlook on policies of expansion, annexation of settlements, security, economy and religion differ. Anticipating these changes could prove to be pivotal in the future to its enemies and allies. The reason for Israel’s youth being nationalist is that they were born into conflict and view that their country is under threat, which makes international law an insignificant fly they can swat aside. Many are also the descendants of post-Soviet Jewish immigrants, granting them a right-wing political perspective; and their population has risen considerably. They seem to be the reason that right-wing Netanyahu proved victorious over center-leaning Benny Gantz in 2019-2020. Israel’s drift towards increasingly militaristically aggressiveness, expansion and hostility towards Iran also finds sympathy with Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and UAE, leading to normalization of ties, with the expectation of other states following suit in the region. Turkey is also experiencing a surge of nationalist-Islamist views and will remain hostile towards Israel along with Iran. The options for Palestinians will dwindle to a one-state solution with either full annexation and nationalization, or establishment of autonomous zones for them. The latter will prevent them from having access to voting in Israeli ballots. Although the US and Europe have considerable left-wing youth voters critical of violations of human rights, there is less interest by their states to dictate over the Middle East after continued failures. Moreover, they would be cautious not to send Israel to seek alliance with Russia or China. However, it seems that whichever right-wing Israeli political party will be favored by its youth will steer the country far more decisively than the international community.
By: Sahar Sadiq, CIGA Research Intern
