No longer a national-state right: Ben Gvir pulls Likud into the Kahanist arena
With a detailed list of recommended candidates, support videos, and inquiries from ministers and MKs looking for a safety net, the chairman of Otzma Yehudit is not content with managing his own party, but is effectively running the ruling party's primaries. Facing Netanyahu's pressure to increase reserved spots and the close connection with the radical stream, the question arises: is Likud losing its historical identity and adopting the Kahanist line as a central part of its new agenda?
There is something almost amusing about the Likud primaries this year. Otzma Yehudit chairman Itamar Ben Gvir, a government minister and someone who is not a Likud member, has become one of the people trying to determine what the Likud list for the Knesset will look like.
He is not content with general statements about the "true right." He publishes names, films videos, and asks Likud members to vote for ten candidates: Eli Cohen, May Golan, Ofir Katz, Amir Ohana, Idit Silman, Shlomo Karhi, Tally Gotliv, Nissim Vaturi, Sasson Guetta, and Osher Shkalim. Once, you had to join Likud to influence the party. Today, it turns out, it is enough to be Itamar Ben Gvir.
This is not a technical matter of "interference." Ben Gvir's list of recommendations is actually a declaration of intent: from his point of view, this is how the next Likud should look. Not just a right-wing party, but a more right-wing party; not just national, but more nationalist; not just suspicious of the judicial system, but militant towards it; less state-oriented, more defiant. Ben Gvir is not trying to bring Otzma Yehudit into Likud. He is doing something much more effective - he is trying to make Likud become Otzma Yehudit through the primaries.
Surviving the primaries
Then came a disturbing piece of information: Ben Gvir said that four ministers and four sitting Likud Knesset members approached him and asked him to reserve them a spot on the Otzma Yehudit list, in case they do not survive the primaries. He did not reveal the names. Eight elected officials, according to his version, already see Ben Gvir as a possible safety net for their careers. Once, Likud members needed Netanyahu to survive. Now, apparently, it is worth having Ben Gvir's number too.
It must be said honestly: Benjamin Netanyahu is not exactly an observer from the sidelines either. The Prime Minister asked to cancel the primaries, tried to expand his power in determining the list, and received eight reserved spots. The Likud court blocked the cancellation of the primaries, but the reserved spots remained. Thus, an almost surreal situation was created: Netanyahu shapes Likud from within, Ben Gvir tries to shape it from without, and in the middle are the members, who are supposed to choose the list but discover that a significant part of the debate has already been decided for them.
And the names are the story. May Golan, Tally Gotliv, Shlomo Karhi, Nissim Vaturi, Idit Silman, and others are not candidates Ben Gvir pulled out of a hat. They represent a real stream within Likud. Therefore, it would be a mistake to see Ben Gvir as a foreign element trying to take over the party. He identifies a process that is already happening within Likud, and is trying to accelerate it. He is not importing Kahanism into Likud; he is giving a name, a face, and a direction to a process of radicalization that is already happening there.
Not just another battle
This is also the reason why this story is much more important than just another battle in the primaries. The question is not whether Ben Gvir will succeed in getting one or two candidates in. The question is what the character of the largest party on the right will be after the elections. Will Likud remain a broad national right-wing party, within which extreme voices also exist, or will it become a party where the Kahanist line is already part of the center, the language, and the list? In the end, Ben Gvir does not need to win the Likud primaries. He does not even need to be there.
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He just needs Likud to defeat itself, and choose enough people that he would have chosen himself. That is, Rabbi Kahane. Welcome to your ruling party - the one who really dictates its language and character and directs its voters is actually Ben Gvir. And for those who have no problem with Ben Gvir pulling half of the Likud list in his Kahanist direction, let them vote Mahal in the elections and everything is fine.
