Israel’s far-right kingmaker says ‘he’s grown up’ from radical past

A far-right leader set to play a crucial role in returning Benjamin Netanyahu to power in Israel has sought to reassure the country’s minorities that he would protect their rights.

Mr Netanyahu is likely to be backed in a coalition by Religious Zionism, a party led by ultranationalist Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

One of the group’s most prominent members, Itamar Ben-Gvir, appears certain to take a post in any coalition arrangement.

But his past actions have alarmed many observers and raised questions over how he will influence government policy towards Israel’s large Arab minority and LGBT+ people.

Mr Ben-Gvir chequered past includes membership of the outlawed militant group Kach, a criminal conviction for anti-Arab incitement and the heckling of Gay Pride parades.

“I've grown up, I've moderated and I've come to understand that life is more complicated,” Mr Ben-Gvir said in a front-page article in Israel Hayom, the nation’s most-read newspaper.

In his article, titled A Letter to My Brethren on the Left, Mr Ben-Gvir said nothing about US-sponsored Israeli talks on Palestinian statehood, which stalled in 1994 and which the Biden administration said on Saturday that it wants to revive.

Religious Zionism, like other Israeli parties on the right, opposes Palestinian statehood. Mr Ben-Gvir has further called for dismantling the interim Palestinian Authority which governs in parts of the West Bank, a move that would effectively return Palestinians to open-ended Israeli rule without national rights.

Focusing on internal issues, Ben-Gvir, who wants to become police minister, wrote that he would tackle crime affecting Israel’s Arabs – a minority whose expulsion he once advocated.

Asserting that he and liberals “agree on 90 per cent of issues”, he said he would not seek to impose religious law nor curb freedom of dissent, “and even if I’m not keen on the [Gay Pride] parade, I will ensure utmost protection for the men and women marching”.

The overture came a day after the Religious Zionism co-head drew ire from the centre-left after suggesting the state had a hand in the 1995 assassination of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish zealot.

Rightists were correct to protest Rabin's policies, lawyer and right-wing politician Bezalel Smotrich said at a memorial ceremony in parliament. He said security services had “used irresponsible manipulation, which to this day has not been fully exposed, to encourage the murderer”.

He appeared to be alluding to a Shin Bet agent provocateur planted among far-rightists in the run-up to the assassination – a matter addressed by a state commission of inquiry and court trials.

Additional reporting by Reuters