The election of a new coalition led by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on 1er last November brought to power a government described by many as the most right-wing and religious in the country’s history.
To be elected, a Prime Minister must win a majority of the 120 seats in Parliament, which forces political forces to form coalitions. In the new government, half of the 64 seats of the majority are occupied by deputies from Likud, the party embodying the traditional right and from which the Prime Minister comes. The other half of these seats is occupied by the representatives of two religious political blocs: that formed by the so-called haredi parties (Yahadut HaTora and Shas); and the more controversial one, made up of an alliance between the Otzma Yehudit, Noam and HaTzionout HaDatit parties.
The presence of religious parties in a ruling coalition is not new, but their importance is growing, which is in the process of marking Israeli politics for a long time.
In addition to a shift to the right of public opinion, these transformations attest to the demographic vitality of several “sectors” (migzarim) of the population whose parties currently in power have succeeded in capturing the electorate. In addition to an Arab-Palestinian minority with its own parties and institutions, Israeli Jewish society is also organized into several very autonomous ethno-religious subgroups. Several of them have their own educational system and all are characterized by very different demographic dynamics, in addition to maintaining different relationships with the State.
The Israel Democracy Institute regularly publishes demographic data on these different subsets. Here are the most recent, put into context.
The Haredi Block
A first sector is the haredi bloc, sometimes described pejoratively as ultra-Orthodox. Population historically quite isolated from the majority society and seeking to preserve itself from the outside world, it currently represents just over 9% of the Israeli Jewish population. With 7.1 children per woman on average compared to 3.1 for the population as a whole, the haredis form by far the population with the strongest demographic growth.
Their political representatives have tended to focus on sectoral demands aimed in particular at ensuring public funding of their educational establishments.
However, this population is in the process of being integrated into Israeli society. By abandoning Yiddish for modern Hebrew, for example. Recent surveys tend to point to quiet but significant politicization of significant segments of the haredi public. This evolution is reflected in a growing attachment to the conformity of Israeli institutions and life to the strictest Jewish law (such as the prohibition of public transport on Shabbat) and to the maintenance of the Jewish character of the country.
The national-religious sector
A second population forming an electoral base almost exclusively won over to right-wing parties is the national-religious sector, which constitutes about 10% of the Jewish population. With an average of four children per woman, religious nationals form the second fastest growing sector.
However, unlike the haredis, the national-religious are integrated into the labor market and into the highest instances of the state. A significant fraction of this sector is ideologically committed to the will to settle and annex the West Bank to Israel. In the 2021 elections, the votes of the national-religious electorate went almost exclusively to right-wing parties intending to represent them, as well as to a few haredi parties.
The public says traditionalist
A third subset is the “traditionalist” audience. It designates a heterogeneous population, often made up of Jews from North Africa and the Middle East, from working-class backgrounds, and characterized by an attachment to Jewish rites, but maintaining a rather symbolic relationship with the religious norm. This public is relatively stable demographically: it formed 36.9% of the Israeli Jewish population between 2003 and 2011 compared to 33.4% for the period 2012-2020. Politically, despite significant differences, the traditionalist populations tend to form the electoral base of Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud.
Secularized Jews
For their part, the centrist and left-wing political parties (now in opposition) mobilize mainly in a fourth sector, that of secularized Jews (hilonim), the largest demographic group of the Jewish population (44%). But with a fertility rate of 2.2 children per woman, their relative demographic weight is decreasing in the face of the traditionalist, haredi and national-religious sectors.
Since the objective end of the Oslo Accords and the politico-military violence of the 2000s, these parties have turned away from the “peace process” to turn towards neoliberal economic programs, the promise of a “high-tech” nation. , the “security” management of the occupation in the West Bank and the defense of institutions in the face of the “threat” posed by the growth of religious sectors.
In addition to the general increase in violence, for several weeks the Israeli government has been facing an unprecedented protest movement, marked by very large demonstrations aimed at defending the Supreme Court, whose independence is threatened by a reform project. If this movement mobilizes widely among secularized Jews, its success will depend on its ability to extend to the religious and traditionalist sectors, which have become essential.