miha schwartzenberg

The Case for Ben-Gvir and Smotrich Bill, let me start by saying that Israelis across almost the entire political spectrum share a deep appreciation for you. Standing up for Israel and confronting antisemitism as forcefully as you have takes real courage. We do not take it for granted. That is why your words carry particular weight here: we know you care about us. And that is why I want to offer a perspective that too often gets lost in discussions about Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Full disclosure: I served as a communications adviser to Netanyahu for a year, until June 2024, including on October 7. I am a secular Israeli living in Tel Aviv. I have never voted for either Ben-Gvir or Smotrich, both of whom are religiously observant, and I do not intend to vote for either in the upcoming election. I have my own criticisms of both men. But much of the commentary about them abroad misses why so many Israelis support them. Consider the size of their constituency. In the final polls before the election, their parties—Smotrich’s Religious Zionism and Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power—averaged roughly 15 seats combined. That is one-eighth of the Knesset, representing roughly half a million voters or more. Together, they would be Israel’s third- or fourth-largest political force. They do not represent a majority, but they represent a substantial number of people whose concerns deserve to be understood. — Before getting to those concerns, though, we need to look at why these parties have so much leverage in coalition negotiations. Netanyahu did not always consider Ben-Gvir an acceptable partner. For years, he treated him as politically beyond the pale. Even today, Netanyahu generally avoids being photographed with him, much to Ben-Gvir’s frustration. Their alliance is not simply a matter of shared ideology. It also reflects the choices available to Netanyahu. Since 2019, refusing to join a Netanyahu-led government has become a defining position for parties in the center and on the left. There have been exceptions during the pandemic and in the emergency government formed after October 7. But the personal boycott of Netanyahu has become a central feature of Israeli politics, and opposition leaders say it will continue after this election. The result is straightforward. In Israel’s parliamentary system, governments depend on coalitions of parties that together command a majority. When centrist and left-wing parties rule out serving under Netanyahu—the leader of Likud, Israel’s largest party—they narrow his options and strengthen the hand of those willing to join him: Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and the ultra-Orthodox parties. What exactly is Netanyahu supposed to do? Tell his voters: “Our opponents refuse to govern with me, so I am giving up on forming a government and handing power to them”? For much of the Israeli right, Netanyahu remains its dominant figure and chosen leader. His voters reject the idea that their political opponents should get to decide who can lead them. Imagine Democrats demanding that Republicans replace their presidential nominee as a condition of working together—or the other way around. You can understand why voters would reject that demand. Opposition parties have every right to refuse to serve with Netanyahu. But that decision strengthens the very partners they want to exclude from power. So if you want Israel’s next government to exclude Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, your appeal should also—and perhaps above all—be directed at the center and left: bridge your differences, end the boycott and make a broader coalition with Netanyahu possible. To be clear, I personally support including Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in the government. But including them in a coalition and depending on them for its survival are two different things. Anyone who wants to reduce their leverage must be willing to make another coalition possible. Simply telling Netanyahu to do without them is not enough. — That brings us to why Israelis vote for them in the first place. I am not claiming to speak for all Israelis, or even for everyone on the right. Many agree with you. You are undoubtedly familiar with their arguments. I want to explain the other side. To understand these voters, try to see the country through the eyes of someone who lives here. You have heard that Israel is about the size of New Jersey. It can sound like a familiar talking point in Israel’s public diplomacy. For us, it describes our daily reality. We live in a tiny country surrounded by a vast Arab and Muslim region, facing enemies who have shown that they will spend years planning how to murder our children in the most horrific ways imaginable. Terrorism did not begin on October 7. But that day showed what happens when our enemies get the chance to act on their intentions. For many Israelis, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich’s tough stance sends an essential message: do not test us. We will not rely on your goodwill. We will not gamble our children’s lives again on the belief that you have become more moderate, that you are deterred or that you have too much to lose. Their supporters also see them as a counterweight within the government. They push Netanyahu from the right and challenge the security establishment’s assumptions—the same establishment that believed Hamas was deterred and could be contained through economic incentives and by managing the conflict. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich were in the government on October 7, and they bear responsibility too. But their presence in the government and later in the security cabinet gave Netanyahu the political backing to resist pressure to give in. Refusing to surrender is now a central message of Netanyahu’s election campaign. In their supporters’ eyes, the two men served as his political Iron Dome against enormous pressure, at home and abroad, to leave Sinwar and Hamas in power. — There is another part of this story that can be hard to grasp from abroad: the place of religious Zionists in Israeli society. This community combines commitments that many Israelis deeply admire: religious observance and Torah study alongside combat service, working for a living and taking responsibility for the country’s future. At a time when most ultra-Orthodox men do not serve in the military, religious Zionists demonstrate that devotion to Judaism and defending the country can go hand in hand. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich draw support from significant parts of this community, though they certainly do not speak for all of it. For some voters, supporting them also means supporting that combination of values. Dismissing these voters as religious fanatics means overlooking people whose faith inspires them to lead the charge on the battlefield. These are people who fight, risk their lives and bury their friends. They are not alone in doing so. Israelis from every political camp and every part of society fight and die for this country. But religious Zionists are disproportionately represented in combat units, among junior officers and, tragically, among the fallen. Many of those soldiers support Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. — Two specific policies also help explain their support. The first is Ben-Gvir’s overhaul of the prisons holding terrorists, which fall under his ministerial authority. Before Ben-Gvir took office, prisons holding security inmates had come to resemble holiday camps. Terrorist inmates enjoyed lavish meals, meat, hummus, drinks, access to prison stores and the freedom to prepare their own food. Smuggled phones allowed them to stay in touch with people outside, including terrorist operatives. The sense was that they were effectively running their own prison wings, with organizational hierarchies and power structures that prison authorities had learned to accommodate. All of this was tolerated to keep the prisons quiet. Before Ben-Gvir took office, the security establishment operated on a warped premise: prison unrest had to be prevented at any cost, lest it spark terrorist attacks outside. The treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel was considered too sensitive an issue to risk a confrontation. These inmates included convicted murderers who had killed civilians and destroyed families simply because their victims were Jewish. Yet they enjoyed conditions that left bereaved families—and Israelis more broadly—angry, sickened and humiliated. Terrorists were asserting their power inside the very prisons meant to punish them. The most appalling example was the scandal involving young female prison guards. Israeli women doing their compulsory military service in the prison system testified that they had been assigned to work around a convicted terrorist at his request and subjected to sexual abuse. One testified that he had raped her. The prisoner had been convicted of murdering an Israeli woman. Those in charge did not just fail to stop it; they enabled it to keep the prison quiet. Put yourself in an Israeli parent’s shoes. You send your daughter to serve her country, and she later testifies that the system accommodated a terrorist murderer’s demands instead of protecting her from him. It is hard to imagine a more shocking example of a system surrendering its authority to the people in its custody. Ben-Gvir made reversing that situation a priority. He stripped away privileges, restricted purchases and cooking, and imposed a much tougher regime in the security wings. Prisons went from places terrorists could look forward to entering to places they feared. From what had been seen as paradise to hell. There is a broad consensus, at least among Jewish Israelis, that terrorists should face harsh punishment and strict discipline in prisons firmly controlled by the state. A convicted terrorist murderer should not enjoy special status and creature comforts, dictate terms to guards or continue exercising organizational power from behind bars. There is also a clear deterrent rationale. Someone considering an attack should know that being captured alive means long years of harsh imprisonment. They should not expect comfort, prestige among fellow inmates or the ability to keep operating from prison. The prospect of years in a prison they fear is meant to make them think twice. That is why even Israelis who have little affection for Ben-Gvir see his prison overhaul as a major achievement that saves Israeli lives, even if we may never know how many. His supporters want to reward him for changing a situation they found intolerable and that the establishment had accepted for years. — The second policy is the expansion of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”)—including the farms closely associated with Smotrich. In addition to serving as finance minister, he holds a ministerial position within the Defense Ministry. This is an issue on which many Israelis see things very differently from some of our friends abroad. Those friends see settlements as an obstacle to a future peace agreement. Many of us see them as essential to our security, and a Palestinian state as a potentially irreversible threat to that security. Many Israelis once supported territorial concessions because they sincerely hoped separation would bring peace. We were willing to give up places with deep historical significance so that our children would not have to keep fighting. But experience convinced many of us that withdrawal can bring the killers closer to our homes. We saw this in the terrorist attacks that followed the Oslo Accords in the 1990s and early 2000s, launched from areas of Judea and Samaria from which Israeli security forces had largely withdrawn. Then came Gaza. In 2005, Israel evacuated its communities and withdrew its permanent military presence. Terrorism and rocket fire predated that withdrawal. But in the years that followed, Hamas took over the territory, built a terrorist army and an underground network, and eventually invaded our communities on October 7. We can debate all the factors that led to the disaster. But you cannot expect Israelis to put that bitter experience aside when asked to accept another withdrawal—this time from the hills overlooking the heart of the country. I live in Tel Aviv. When I travel through Samaria and see the city’s skyscrapers, I can immediately understand what it would mean for hostile forces to control those ridges. Ben-Gurion Airport, the greater Tel Aviv area and critical infrastructure are close by—in some places, just a 15–20-minute drive away. Even a relatively small but persistent threat could disrupt life across central Israel. Smotrich and the current government have responded by establishing farms in Judea and Samaria, building on the original settlement movement. Under the current government, 104 new settlement sites have been established or officially recognized in Judea and Samaria. A small number of families can maintain a presence across a large area by living there, farming and herding livestock. Their supporters believe this strengthens Israel’s hold on the territory and makes a future Palestinian state harder to establish. That is exactly why the government, with Smotrich leading the effort, supports these farms. It is also why opponents of settlements, in Israel and abroad, are determined to stop them from expanding. The campaign over “settler violence” has also developed against this backdrop. Much of it relies on lies, selective presentation and casting aggressors as victims and victims as aggressors. It portrays the Jewish presence itself as the source of violence, while leaving out threats, theft and attacks against settlers and their property, including the systematic and horrific poisoning of settlers’ goats, sheep and other livestock. Footage often starts halfway through a confrontation, omitting what happened first and making a response to an attack look like an unprovoked assault. Of course, Jews who attack Palestinians or harm innocent people must be held accountable, as they are. But they are a tiny fringe of the settlement population. For many Israelis, including those of us who do not live in settlements, this presence is directly connected to our own security. When Smotrich strengthens it, they see an achievement worth rewarding at the ballot box—even when people abroad see it as a reason to condemn him. — And that brings me to the central point. You emphasize the positive message Israel would send the world by leaving Ben-Gvir and Smotrich out of the government. I understand the importance of public opinion, our alliances and American support. Losing any of those can carry serious security costs. But many Israelis are asking another question: what message would we send our enemies? What if we misjudge their intentions again, while throwing under the bus the representatives of a community that bears a disproportionate share of the burden on the front lines? We worry that the desire to appear moderate and reasonable to Western elites—whose deep hostility toward Israel will not disappear simply because Ben-Gvir and Smotrich leave the government—will push us to accept risks whose consequences the rest of the world will not have to live with. Your love for Israel is real, Bill, and we value it. But when a policy fails here, our children are the first to pay. That shapes how Israelis weigh risks, even when our conclusions make our friends abroad uncomfortable. I do not want Israel to be isolated. I want a prosperous, open country with strong alliances. Like Trump and Netanyahu, I also believe that peace through strength can improve Israel’s standing in the world over time. If, a decade or two from now, Israel’s ability to project strength has helped it secure peace agreements with more countries in the region, it may no longer need to fight major wars that tragically claim so many lives. Children being born today, who will have no memory of this war, may grow up knowing a different Israel—one that remains vigilant, but no longer finds itself in a violent conflict every few years. But if the choice is between enduring a difficult period of international pressure, including dealing with an extremely hostile Democratic administration, and accepting demands we believe put our lives at risk, many of us are prepared to bear the cost. In that respect, I believe Netanyahu himself moved closer during the war to the approach Ben-Gvir and Smotrich represent: a greater willingness to stand up to our friends when he believes a vital security interest is at stake. You can criticize Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. Their rhetoric and past conduct do not always sit well with Western audiences (although, contrary to false claims, they have never called for the ethnic cleansing of civilians). But to understand why people support them, you have to understand how many Israelis feel they have already lost loved ones because reassuring assumptions proved disastrously wrong. For all our desire to remain close to our friends, we will not commit national suicide to win approval at a fashionable cocktail party in Paris or New York. In May 2024, for example, as the Biden administration opposed expanding the operation in Rafah and threatened to restrict weapons supplies, Netanyahu said: “If we have to stand alone, we will stand alone.” And he told Secretary of State Blinken: “If we need to, we will fight with our fingernails.” Many Israelis believe that without Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, Netanyahu would not have had the political backing to take such a firm stand against Blinken’s pressure. And that is why roughly half a million Israelis are expected to vote for them in the upcoming election.