Israel's far right find fertile ground among first-time voters

When Israel's far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, reached voting age, he was rejected from Israel's army for being too politically extreme.

His views have not changed much in the 30 years since then - but Israel has. Once shunned by the political establishment, he is now part of the government's inner sanctum of ministers.

On the campaign trail ahead of Israel's general elections next week, Ben Gvir is often surrounded by a jubilant pack of fresh-faced young fans, waving huge party flags over the heads of his numerous security guards.

At the covered market in Ramle - a mixed city of Jewish and Arab Israelis - he told us his message to young voters was to get out and vote.

"We see the support, we see the love [and] we want to win!" he said.

More than half a million first-time voters will cast their ballots in this election, which many Israelis see as existential for Israel's future security and identity.

Polls suggest it will be a tight race, and the new young voters could help decide the result.

More than 16% are planning to support far-right parties - either Ben Gvir's Jewish Power or the Religious Zionism party of his far-right ally Bezalel Smotrich - according to a poll for one of Israel's most popular newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth.

And almost three-quarters see themselves as "right or centre-right", according to another survey for Israel's leading Channel 12 television network.

"Itamar Ben Gvir gives me a sense of security," said 20-year-old Mordechai, one of the young fans accompanying the politician to Ramle.

"Like everyone in history, from Trump to Moses, there are slips of the tongue that are a bit less good. So what? 90% of the things by Itamar are amazing."

"Itamar will give us safety, and when we go to the army, someone will have our backs and be behind us," said 18-year-old Nadav.

"I think he's trying to show that we're a strong country. For many years, we couldn't show we're strong in our beliefs. We couldn't express our ideology."

Meir Schreiber, an ultra-Orthodox 23-year-old who grew up in London, said the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel, which triggered the Gaza war, also convinced him that Ben Gvir was the right choice.

"Young people understand that peace isn't something we can do," he told me, "because what happens to you when you're young shapes your personality - we saw October 7."

Ben Gvir is a divisive candidate in a divided nation: his political positions include annexation of the occupied West Bank, Jewish settlement of Gaza, and the "voluntary emigration" of Palestinians - positions and rhetoric that are widely condemned by liberal Israelis.

Several Western countries have imposed sanctions or travel bans on Ben Gvir and Smotrich for incitement against Palestinians. Both men are powerful ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition.

As he and his entourage pushed their way between the stalls, some shopkeepers threw sweets; others, dark looks.

"I don't like him, he sows discord," one stallholder said. "Ramle is a mixed city - Jews and Arabs. There's no problem here, even after 7 October, but his message preys on young uneducated people."

The fact that he appears more popular with 18 to 22-year-olds than with their parents' generation is often put down, at least partly, to the impact of the 7 October attacks.

But political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin, who previously ran many Israeli political campaigns, said it was more than that.

"For about the last 20 years, we've seen young Israeli Jews are more right wing than average, and significantly more right-wing on many measures than the 55+ group," she told me.

"They have grown up under a series of wars with no personal experience of efforts to achieve peace. But for the most part, they have been socialised into the most extreme terms of the debate [as] legitimate to discuss: annexation, settlement expansion and - after 7 October - annexation of Gaza. And now they're voting for the first time."

A series of classroom debates filmed by Israeli satirist Lior Schleien recently highlighted the extreme views of some young Israelis.

The debates, in which he challenges racist or extreme views, drew a lot of attention in Israel, and included one exchange in which a student advocates killing all Arab citizens of Israel. That particular video has since been removed from Schleien's website.

Surveys suggest that first-time voters here are highly motivated to cast their ballots, with more than 80% saying they are likely to do so. But the same research suggests they are also more sceptical about democratic institutions and less engaged by political protests or petitions.

In a race that is largely deadlocked between two stable blocs of pro-government and anti-government supporters, getting new voters to the polling stations could make all the difference.

Opposition parties have been engaging younger voters with warnings about threats to democracy, new social media videos and younger candidates.

"In 2022 [in the last election], only 59% of the citizens living in Tel Aviv voted - in the most liberal city in the whole Middle East! In places where they voted for Ben Gvir, they voted at around 90%," said Yonatan Shalev, a 24-year-old candidate with the centre-right opposition party, Beyachad ("Together"), led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett.

He told me that Ben Gvir had understood the power of social media faster than other politicians.

"The liberal politicians didn't believe in TikTok, didn't believe in Instagram, and he took advantage of that arena."

Shalev said he had pushed his own party to reach young voters through social media.

"Three months ago, Ben Gvir was still the politician with the most amount of views on TikToks, the most amount of likes on TikTok, and Instagram as well," he explained. "Right now, Naftali Bennett is leading [that]."

His boss's Instagram page now features videos of the former prime minister lifting weights to rap music, or chatting with Shalev in the street. Even Netanyahu has joined in with a fast-paced militaristic social media video set to heavy beats.

"Younger people don't watch the news in Israel, [they] don't read the newspapers. The younger generation is getting all its details from TikTok and Instagram".

Yahlee Reske and Mika Magal, both 21 years old, rushed out of a nearby bar when they saw Shalev walk past.

"Yes," agreed Yahlee. "He's our age, he's so young and knows so much. It's hard to listen to people who are old and saying the same things over and over again."

Yahlee said she was doing national military service when the 7 October attacks unfolded.

"I don't think I ever looked at politics until then," she said. "But maybe if the government had been different on 7 October, things would have been better."

The same poll suggesting 16% of first-time voters would back a far-right party also suggested that Beyachad alone would take almost 9% of their votes, as would the centre-right Yashar party of Gadi Eisenkot.

At a student event in Tel Aviv last weekend, Ben Gvir was interrupted by protesters shouting, "Fascism will not pass", and forced off the stage.

Israel's young voters may be moving to the right, but they are still as divided as their country, over who they believe is the guardian of Israel's security and identity, and who is an existential threat.

Additional reporting by Morgan Gisholt Minard and Gidi Kleiman

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