Israel's far right find fertile ground among first-time voters

**Israel's far right find fertile ground among first-time voters**

When Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, became old enough to vote, the army turned him away because he was considered too politically extreme.

Three decades later, his views have changed little — but Israel has. Once rejected by the political mainstream, he now sits inside the government’s inner circle of ministers.

During campaigning before next week’s general election, Ben Gvir is frequently encircled by an enthusiastic crowd of young supporters, who wave large party flags above the heads of his many security guards.

At the covered market in Ramle, a mixed city of Jewish and Arab Israelis, he said his message to young voters was simple: go out and vote.

"We see the support, we see the love [and] we want to win!" he said.

Nadav, 18, believes Ben Gvir is "trying to show that Israel is a strong country"

More than half a million people voting for the first time will take part in this election, which many Israelis view as crucial to Israel’s future security and identity.

Polls indicate the contest will be close, and these new young voters may help determine the outcome.

According to a poll for one of Israel’s most widely read newspapers, Yedioth Ahronoth, more than 16% plan to back far-right parties — either Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power or the Religious Zionism party led by his far-right ally Bezalel Smotrich.

And in another survey for Israel’s leading Channel 12 television network, almost three-quarters described themselves as "right or centre-right".

"Itamar Ben Gvir gives me a sense of security," said 20-year-old Mordechai, one of the young supporters accompanying the politician in Ramle.

"Like everyone in history, from Trump to Moses, there are slips of the tongue that are a bit less good. So what? 90% of the things by Itamar are amazing."

"Itamar will give us safety, and when we go to the army, someone will have our backs and be behind us," said 18-year-old Nadav.

"I think he's trying to show that we're a strong country. For many years, we couldn't show we're strong in our beliefs. We couldn't express our ideology."

Meir Schreiber, an ultra-Orthodox 23-year-old who grew up in London, said the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel, which sparked the Gaza war, also persuaded him that Ben Gvir was the right choice.

"Young people understand that peace isn't something we can do," he told me, "because what happens to you when you're young shapes your personality - we saw October 7."

Polls suggest more than 16% of first-time voters are planning to support far-right parties next week

Ben Gvir is a polarising figure in a deeply divided country. His positions include annexing the occupied West Bank, Jewish settlement in Gaza, and the "voluntary emigration" of Palestinians — views and language that many liberal Israelis strongly condemn.

Several Western countries have imposed sanctions or travel bans on Ben Gvir and Smotrich over incitement against Palestinians. Both men are influential ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

As he and his entourage moved through the market stalls, some shopkeepers handed out sweets; others looked on darkly.

"I don't like him, he sows discord," one stallholder said. "Ramle is a mixed city - Jews and Arabs. There's no problem here, even after 7 October, but his message preys on young uneducated people."

His apparent popularity among 18- to 22-year-olds, compared with their parents’ generation, is often attributed at least partly to the impact of the 7 October attacks.

But political analyst Dahlia Scheindlin, who has previously run many Israeli political campaigns, said there was more to it.

"For about the last 20 years, we've seen young Israeli Jews are more right wing than average, and significantly more right-wing on many measures than the 55+ group," she told me.

"They have grown up under a series of wars with no personal experience of efforts to achieve peace. But for the most part, they have been socialised into the most extreme terms of the debate [as] legitimate to discuss: annexation, settlement expansion and - after 7 October - annexation of Gaza. And now they're voting for the first time."

Mordechai, 20, says Ben Gvir's "slips of the tongue" do not matter

A recent series of classroom debates filmed by Israeli satirist Lior Schleien drew attention to the extreme views held by some young Israelis.

The debates, in which he confronts racist or extreme opinions, attracted significant attention in Israel, and one exchange featured a student calling for the killing of all Arab citizens of Israel. That video has since been removed from Schleien’s website.

Surveys indicate that first-time voters here are highly motivated to cast ballots, with more than 80% saying they are likely to do so. But the same research suggests they are also more sceptical of democratic institutions and less interested in political protests or petitions.

In a race that is largely deadlocked between two stable blocs of pro-government and anti-government supporters, bringing new voters to the polls could prove decisive.

Opposition parties have been trying to reach younger voters with warnings about threats to democracy, new social media videos and younger candidates.

Polls show Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition allies in a tight race with the opposition bloc

"In 2022 [in the last election], only 59% of the citizens living in Tel Aviv voted - in the most liberal city in the whole Middle East! In places where they voted for Ben Gvir, they voted at around 90%," said Yonatan Shalev, a 24-year-old candidate with the centre-right opposition party, Beyachad ("Together"), led by former prime minister Naftali Bennett.

He told me Ben Gvir had grasped the power of social media faster than other politicians.

"The liberal politicians didn't believe in TikTok, didn't believe in Instagram, and he took advantage of that arena."

Shalev said he had urged his own party to use social media to reach young voters.

"Three months ago, Ben Gvir was still the politician with the most amount of views on TikToks, the most amount of likes on TikTok, and Instagram as well," he explained. "Right now, Naftali Bennett is leading [that]."

His boss’s Instagram account now includes videos of the former prime minister lifting weights to rap music, or speaking with Shalev in the street. Even Netanyahu has joined in, with a fast-moving militaristic social media video set to heavy beats.

"Younger people don't watch the news in Israel, [they] don't read the newspapers. The younger generation is getting all its details from TikTok and Instagram".

Yahlee Reske and Mika Magal, both 21 years old, hurried out of a nearby bar when they saw Shalev pass by.

"I love him," Mika told me.

"Yes," agreed Yahlee. "He's our age, he's so young and knows so much. It's hard to listen to people who are old and saying the same things over and over again."

Yahlee said she was doing national military service when the 7 October attacks happened.

"I don't think I ever looked at politics until then," she said. "But maybe if the government had been different on 7 October, things would have been better."

The same poll that found 16% of first-time voters would support a far-right party also suggested that Beyachad alone would win almost 9% of their votes, as would the centre-right Yashar party of Gadi Eisenkot.

At a student event in Tel Aviv last weekend, Ben Gvir was interrupted by protesters shouting, "Fascism will not pass", and was forced off the stage.

Israel’s young voters may be shifting rightward, but they remain as divided as the country itself over who they see as the protector of Israel’s security and identity, and who they regard as an existential threat.