The Dangerous Rise of Israeli Ultra-Nationalists | Decade of Hate

foreign s of Palestinians protested the closing of a space in front of the Damascus gate while Jewish extremists March elsewhere shouting death to Arabs 2022 was the deadliest year in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in over a decade and the violence is only increasing 80 Palestinians and 14 Israelis were killed in the first three months of 2023 while Israel itself has been rocked by Street clashes and mass protests one of the key flash points has been the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Girard where Palestinian families claim that they're being illegally evicted to make way for Jewish settlers leading to a series of riots and Street clashes but in October in the midst of escalating violence something strange happened a serving member of the Israeli Parliament appeared on the front line of the street conflict pulled out a gun and started threatening Palestinian protesters that's even more shocking was that this man wielding a gun has since been named Israel's minister of National Security a powerful figure in Israel's recently elected government probably the most ultra-nationalist in the country's history this is how the far-right ultra nationalist politics of Jewish supremacists and militant settlers has made the leap from the streets into the halls of power threatening the Democratic standing of the world's only Jewish state foreign the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is one of the world's most painful and long-running disputes but in recent times something seems to be shifting with the growing prominence of Jewish Ultra nationalists [Applause] is an explicitly Jewish supremacist organization whose distinctive uniform has become a common sight at Ultra nationalist rallies across Israel [Music] the group first gained attention by protesting outside the weddings of mixed Jewish Arab couples using harassment intimidation and sometimes violence to prevent religious assimilation or cultural mixing practice but within Israel itself lahava's marches have become increasingly violent targeting non-jews mixed couples and lgbtq events why do you protest Pride because the Torah said you need to be straight you need to be a man with woman be willing to fight for the cause Israel into Amazon what marks the hover out is that this is not a movement of the old it's activists are drawn from a new generation of young Israelis who may not even remember the last time there was a functioning peace process with the Palestinians so the significance of the far-right group like larva primarily being comprised of young people is that they really grew up without any connection to what we call the Oslo years you could almost call them the post Oslo generation this is a whole generation that didn't experience the kind of peer-to-peer contacts that those who grew up in the Ozil years had who met with Palestinians who may have even been learning Arabic several lahaba activists have been prosecuted for violence and hate crimes but the ideological roots of this movement actually go back decades this is the sovereign state of Israel and these then Arabs here had better learn that if they want to stay here they'll sit here quietly or get the hell out lahava takes its inspiration from Maya cahane an ultra nationalist leader who advocated absolute Jewish supremacism within Israel there is no such thing as an Arab Village in the state of Israel it is a Jewish village that is temporarily inhabited by Arabs the IQ movement was founded in Israel in the 1970s it was Ultra nationalist it had ethnic and religious supremacist ideals first of all there are no Palestine Arabs there is no Palestine there are no Palestinian Arabs he managed to gain a seat in the knesset in 1984 or under the banner of his party this was seen as so abhorrent and mainstream Israel do not respect him as a political figure while it was active cahane's movement was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S and lahava's leader Benny gobstein was barred from running for Israel's parliament in 2019 la largely because of his association with gehanism as time went on these ideas went underground they became attractive to youth culture some people who had been exposed to these ideas who came around to thinking you know this guy was right but lahava is far from the only movement drawing inspiration from kahana's ideology to drum up tensions between Israelis and Palestinians [Music] in the West Bank which Israel is occupied since 1967. there's been an upsurge in violence between Palestinians and militant Israeli settlers with the security services often accused of failing to prevent settler violence and shielding the perpetrators he showed us videos he'd taken himself of the settler attacks where you could see youths come down from the settlement above the village to throw stones the worst thing about it was that they were accompanied by the Israeli Army who were supposedly there to separate the two groups but were in fact doing nothing to stop the settler attack even people who don't necessarily grow up in a highly ideological settlement are probably trending generationally and otherwise to be more right-wing in their politics the settlers themselves are really at the front line of the israeli-palestinian conflict welcome in February 2023 following the murder of two Israelis armed settlers went on a rampage through the Palestinian town of hawara leaving one dead hundreds injured and the town in flames violence in the occupied territories has increased since 2016 in tandem with the settlers increased political influence when Trump was elected the Israeli far-right celebrated wildly he continues to be very very popular in Israel because he just handed the country a whole slate of diplomatic victories but it did just give the sense that there was one less check against Israeli uses particularly in the occupied territories than there had been before foreign [Music] government Minister who is waving a gun around in Sheikh Girard item bengafir is an ultra-nationalist settler extremist in November 2022 he was appointed Israel's minister of National Security he supports relaxing open fire rules against Palestinian rioters and want Security Forces to be immune from Criminal prosecution in 2007 he was convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization Ben gavier also got his political start in the kahanas movement as a teenager he was rejected for service in the Israeli Army for being too extreme this is the same guy who's now in charge of Israel's National Security the track record stands and he was charged and convicted of several offenses related to participation in terrorist organization even a few years ago it would have been Unthinkable for someone as Extreme as being a Veer who's been not just accused but convicted of racial incitement to become part of an Israeli cabinet many have pointed to his rise as the clearest indication of how much Israeli politics and Society has lurched to the right prompting concerns over exactly what this means for minorities and the states of Israeli democracy so when you have a far-right ideologue who does not believe that Palestinians have a right to exist the scope of what he can punish them with in terms of deploying his police forces is is pretty frightening to imagine but there's a Twist in this story a lot of it actually comes down to the political fortunes and alleged crimes of one man Benjamin Netanyahu Netanyahu is Israel's longest-serving prime minister and its dominant political figure of the modern era but in 2021 he lost power following multiple indictments for high-level corruption Israel's attorney general has just unveiled charges of bribery fraud and Bridge of trust against prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in three separate ongoing corruption investigations the repeated elections over the past few years have been almost exclusively about keeping Netanyahu in power and out of possible jail time on his various corruption charges despite this Netanyahu managed to Cobble together a political deal with fringe religious and ultra-nationalist parties including benga virus which was able to bring him back to Power the government tens of thousands of protesters are once again hitting the streets in Israel as the country enters the 10th week of mass protests over prime minister Benjamin netanyahu's plan to overhaul the judicial system these are people who previously were at the absolute fringes of Israeli Politics the most right-wing cabinet in this country's history wants to strip the Supreme Court of the authority to veto laws that judges deem on fit there's been a sentiment very strongly within the internationalist community that the high court of Israel is an entirely secular biased institution that doesn't believe that the religious value is the state a lot of this is happening from the mainstreaming of the ideology that's against the high court foreign these proposals are so extreme that they've sparked an unprecedented reaction from Israeli Society over the past few months more than half a million protesters have poured onto the streets growing turmoil in Israel fiery protests erupting in the streets tonight this comes just hours after embattled prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed as defense minister the large number actually of Israeli military reservists who basically said if these traditional overhaul plans aren't put on hold it's going to destroy Israeli democracy and we don't want to serve in a military that is not part of a democracy it now seems as if the Netanyahu bengavir Coalition has been forced to back away from its plans to attack the Supreme Court but the situation remains extremely volatile with a rising tide of violence on both sides of the conflict with the Palestinians and extremists like bengavir now at the heart of government the prospects for Israeli democracy let alone a functioning peace process are looking bleak

Channel: VICE

Views: 621,448

Keywords: Palestine, Israel, Israel attack, palestine news, palestine israel, palestine news live, VICE israel, VICE palestine, documentary, documentaries, docs, interview, culture, lifestyle, world, exclusive, independent, underground, videos, journalism, vice guide, vice.com, vice, vice magazine, vice mag, vice videos, film, short films, movies, Decade of Hate, Gaza, West bank, israel settlers, israel occupation, illegal settlement, ben gvir interview english, Ben gvir, middle east eye news

Id: g6APCbtpdds

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 10 2023