# Israel Far-Right Built a Legacy That Outlasts Netanyahu

- Link: https://the-timenews.com/israel-far-right-legacy/
- Published: 2026-11-14T10:30:54+00:00
- Author: The Time News

Even if Benjamin Netanyahu loses power tomorrow, the bureaucratic machinery built
by Israel’s most extreme politicians will keep operating without him. Over three
years in government, the **Israel far-right** has reshaped state institutions, security
forces, and the occupied West Bank so deeply that removing the prime minister does
almost nothing to reverse their work.

Opposition figures now talk openly about toppling Netanyahu and building a coalition
around former military chief-of-staff Gadi Eisenkot. But the real leverage inside
Israeli politics remains anchored to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National
Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Together, they have locked their ideological 
goals into legal codes, land registries, and police command structures.

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For millions of Palestinians and the wider Middle East, that structural shift matters
far more than whoever sits in the prime minister’s office. An election defeat for
Netanyahu might swap the faces at the cabinet table, yet the political apparatus
of Jewish supremacy stays firmly in place.

## How Smotrich and Ben-Gvir reshaped the state

Netanyahu handed Smotrich and Ben-Gvir unprecedented authority in late 2022 to secure
his own return to power. Smotrich took over the finance ministry and gained a special
post inside the defence ministry, giving him direct control over civilian management
in the West Bank. Ben-Gvir gained command of the national police and the prison 
service.

Smotrich used his post to create a separate Settlement Administration, stripping
traditional military oversight from West Bank land decisions. In August 2025, he
revived the E1 settlement plan, declaring publicly that the project would bury any
prospect of an independent Palestinian state. He also redirected massive public 
funds toward illegal outposts while settler attacks against Palestinian communities
surged.

Ben-Gvir, meanwhile, politicised police command chains and imposed crushing restrictions
across prisons holding thousands of Palestinian detainees. He pushed a death penalty
bill through parliament that strictly targets Palestinians, turning hardline ideological
stances into formal statutes.

## Why opposition suits Ben-Gvir but threatens Smotrich

Outside observers often treat the two hardline ministers as an identical pair, but
their power rests on entirely different foundations. Arie Perliger, a scholar at
the University of Massachusetts Lowell who studies far-right political networks,
notes that losing office will hit the two men in opposite ways.

> “I would argue that we should not treat Ben-Gvir and Smotrich as a single bloc,
> since exclusion from government would affect them in opposite ways.”

Ben-Gvir thrives on political combat. His roots lie in the outlawed Kahanist movement,
an ideology that long drew energy from being excluded by the political establishment.
If pushed out of the cabinet, Ben-Gvir can return to street-level agitation and 
rally aggrieved voters against a centrist government.

Smotrich, by contrast, operates as a bureaucrat. His achievements depend on controlling
treasury purse strings, zoning committees, and defence department appointments. 
Cut off from public budgets and administrative authority, his influence over day-
to-day policy drops immediately.

## The entrenched power of the Israel far-right

Removing either man from office does not erase the voter base that put them there.
The Religious Zionist movement stretches back to the 1967 war, while Ben-Gvir’s 
Jewish Power party commands loyal followings across working-class towns and settlements.

According to Roi Zur, an assistant professor of government at Essex University, 
these factions represent a stable 10 percent of the Israeli electorate. They do 
not fade when coalitions collapse, because their supporters share deep ideological
commitments that mainstream conservative parties spent decades cultivating.

Reversing the policies they planted requires intense political courage that opposition
leaders have never demonstrated. Centrist figures hoping to succeed Netanyahu supported
the devastating war on Gaza, where more than 74,000 Palestinians were killed, and
backed sweeping security crackdowns. None of Netanyahu’s potential successors have
pledged to dismantle Smotrich’s settlement bureaucracy or fire Ben-Gvir’s police
appointees.

## A permanent cultural and political shift

Beyond administrative rules, the coalition pushed public language into open hostility.
Aida Touma-Suleiman, a former member of parliament for the left-wing Hadash party,
describes a climate where daily racism has become an expected test of national loyalty.

Arabic speakers face suspicion on public transit, while state prosecutors ignore
organised mob violence across rural West Bank villages. Western governments, including
Ireland and the Netherlands, imposed sanctions and travel bans on Smotrich and Ben-
Gvir in June 2025, citing explicit calls for ethnic cleansing. Yet domestic pushback
against their agenda remains muted.

As talks over a possible unity government gather pace in the Knesset, Ben-Gvir and
Smotrich are already warning their ultra-Orthodox allies against cutting deals with
Eisenkot. Whether Netanyahu survives the coming parliamentary challenge or falls
to an opposition vote, the administrative machinery built by the **Israel far-right**
is already locked in place for the next election cycle.

_Source: [Al Jazeera](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/14/netanyahu-may-fall-but-his-far-right-legacy-in-israel-is-going-nowhere)_

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