In a recent blog post, Michael Koplow took issue with a piece by Dan Ephron, which predicted the dominance of the Israeli right for the foreseeable future. Koplow argues that Ephron lumps together three distinct political forces: the secular right, the orthodox but not ultra-orthodox right, and the ultra-orthodox. Koplow argues that while the ultra-orthodox may be currently aligned with the secular right and the orthodox right, ultra-orthodox politics are determined by social issues and that they have a tradition of approving of trading land for peace. Koplow rightly takes Ephron to task for suggesting that the ultra-orthodox share the national religious goal of settling all of biblical Israel for the sake of settlement.
However, the facts on the ground may be changing. There is reason to believe that these old tensions are melting away providing the basis for a permanent right wing majority. A 2009 International Crisis Group report notes a number of instances of the lines between the orthodox and the ultra-orthodox blurring. The report points to housing pressures that are pushing ultra-orthodox settlers further into the West Bank resulting in cooperative arrangements between the ultra-orthodox and the national religious. At the same time, the ultra-orthodox are more often coming face to face with Palestinian resistance, increasing the role security calculations play in their decision to strike political alliances with the secular right and the national religious.
Perhaps most worryingly, the report notes signs that the ultra-orthodox youth may no longer adhere to desires of their religious leaders, which still largely characterize the motivations and behavior Koplow describes. The report states:
Levels of activism still remain significantly lower among ultra-orthodox than national-religious Israelis, though here, too, there are potential indications of change. Rabbinic efforts to rein in protests by young ultra-orthodox students increasingly fall on deaf ears. Despite rabbinic expressions of disapproval, hundreds of ultra-orthodox youths from a range of Torah colleges joined national-religious demonstrators to picket Jerusalem’s main roads and throw stones at police in a rare joint protest against the army’s December 2008 eviction of religious settlers from the Hebron House of Contention. Though ultra-orthodox rabbis continue to regard violence of all kinds, including military service as a corrupting influence, local observers reported a mounting albeit still low number of ultra-orthodox attacks against Palestinians.
The report goes on:
Conscript-age ultra-orthodox Torah students commonly describe secular and national-religious Jews as Israel’s foot-soldiers, using their brawn to secure its defences, while they use their prayers. Even the near-absolute ban on military service appears to be eroding. Crisis Group met several ultra-orthodox settlers in military uniform, who said their communities supported their service. An analyst said, “The ultra-orthodox retain their dress and their institutions, but they are behaving more and more like the national-religious in both politics and way of life”.
Given these trends, it is not clear that the Israeli right lacks a permanent majority. In 2009, the extent of the integration was still quite low, but there are few reasons to believe the trends of integration have reversed or will reverse in the near future. The return of Aryeh Deri to Shas provides a glimmer of hope though the power sharing agreement that has emerged within Shas suggests a major change in Shas’ politics is unlikely. Another clash that pits the secular right against the ultra-orthodox could also cause a change, though Netanyahu’s handling of the end of the Tal Law suggests such a clash is not in the cards.
Ephron was incorrect about the historical reasons for the formation of a potential permanent majority, but it waits to be seen whether he was wrong about the larger point of a permanent right wing majority resting on the increasing demographic power of the ultra-orthodox and the orthodox.
