Neo-Zionism - Ideology

Ideology

Neo-Zionism emerged in the 1970s. It is mainly constituted of members of the pro-settler movement and members of the "national camp" in Israel. It is currently politically represented by the Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu coalition government of Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as other parties including The Jewish Home, the parties of the National Union (Moledet, Tkuma) and Otzma LeYisrael (Eretz Yisrael Shelanu, Hatikva) and other small parties such as the Jewish National Front, Tehiya and Tzomet, as well as the non-parliamentary Movement for Greater Israel and the banned Kach and Kahane Chai and the Jewish Defense League.

Neo-Zionists consider that "secular Zionism", particularly the labor version, was too weak on nationalism and never understood the impossibility of Arabs and Jews living together in peace. They claim that the Arab attitude to Israel is inherently rooted in anti-Semitism and that it is a Zionist illusion to think living in peace and together with them is possible. They consider Arabs in Israel to be a fifth column and pose a demographic threat to the Jewish majority in Israel. From their point of view to them the only solution to achieve peace is through "deterrence and retaliation" or the downright expulsion of Israeli Arabs and the Palestinian population of the occupied Palestinian Territories, to neighboring Arab states.

For Neo-Zionism, "the weakness of Israeli Nationalism derives from his alienation of Jewish sources and culture (...). Only a new national-religious and orthodox coalition cure Zionism of this moral bankruptcy". Neo-Zionists view the land of Israel as the natural and Biblically mandated home of the Jewish people and assert that the goal of Jewish statehood is not only about creating a safe refuge for Jews but also about the national-historic destiny of the people of Israel in the land of Israel.

For Chan & al., "Neo-Zionism (...) is an exclusionary, nationalist, even racist, and antidemocratic political-cultural trend, striving to heighten the fence encasing Israeli identity."