Yehuda Glick’s meteoric rise from messianic margins to Israeli parliament
“Extremist and dangerous forces have taken over Israel and the Likud movement,” Moshe Ya’alon remarked at a press conference following his ouster as defense minister.
The focus of attention was on Netanyahu’s imminent appointment of Yisrael Beitenu (Israel Our Home) party leader Avigdor Lieberman to the defense ministry, overlooking Ya’alon’s replacement in Likud: US-born settler and face of the Temple Movement Yehuda Glick.
The Temple Movement aims to build a third Jewish temple on Haram al-Sharif as part of a vision to replace Israel’s ethnocratic parliamentary system with a monarchy based on halacha (Jewish law) throughout Eretz Yisrael (the biblical Land of Israel including Palestine and beyond). While Lieberman’s appointment signifies a success for Israel’s secular right wing, Glick’s entrance to the parliament is a major step forward in the Religious Zionist takeover of Israel.
More than two decades of the peace process have empowered Israel’s hardline elements, rendering the Labor Zionist camp irrelevant and struggling to maintain any appeal to the Israeli mainstream. As Israel’s old guard has become mostly obsolete, the settler movement has positioned itself as the future, taking over key positions in the government, the military, police and Shin Bet, and winning public support through the Temple Movement. “Religious Zionism is on its way to taking control of the State of Israel,” former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin warned in 2015.
https://mondoweiss.net/2016/05/meteoric-messianic-parliament/
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