Six years ago, in a small Jerusalem event hall filled with kippahs, head coverings, and stale pastries, the Tkuma party selected the people who would represent it in the Knesset as part of Naftali Bennett's Habayit Hayehudi faction in the 2015 election campaign.
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The Israeli public was unfamiliar with the party, which represents religious Zionism's conservative and ultra-Orthodox stream, and found it justifiably difficult to differentiate between the different factions comprising the national-religious community. Even the leader that was chosen to represent them, Bezalel Smotrich, was fairly anonymous at the time.
Many political upheavals and what seems like endless election campaigns later, Smotrich had parted ways with Bennett, rejoined him, managed to be appointed transportation minister, and mainly become the religious-Zionist party's greatest dilemma. In fact, Smotrich isn't just the religious-Zionists' dilemma, but one for the entire Right. He is at the very center of the debate as to where Israel's nationalist camp is headed.
On the one hand, Smotrich embodies everything the Right could ever want in a leader. A gifted politician, Smotrich is able to put theory into practice and is loyal not just to his values, but to the public he represents. Even his most vocal opponents on the Left, including those who find his views vile, would be hard-pressed not to praise his work at the Transportation Ministry and have been impressed by his abilities to act behave in a businesslike manner even with political rivals.
Smotrich may also be the only politician to the Right of Netanyahu to have succeeded in criticizing the prime minister while at the same time publicly recognizing his leadership and achievements. Smotrich has stood alongside Netanyahu when it comes to the prime minister's legal troubles. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to assume this is a politician cast from the kind of material of which the next generation of prime ministers is made.
On the other hand, Smotrich is a political hawk who has developed an excessive appetite for scandal. On his resume, one finds outrageous remarks and unnecessary confrontations that infuriated and deterred many. This is a religious ideologue, someone who will refuse to back down from their positions on issues of religion and state and who seems to suffer from an excessive case of sectorialism. To be clear, his opinions are legitimate; Smotrich is not the fundamentalist racist some would paint him out to be.
Nevertheless, his positions are in direct contrast to the range of views held by the Israeli mainstream, including those on the Right who respect tradition and are interested in emphasizing the State of Israel's Jewish character but also see themselves as more liberal and open-minded on issues such as same-sex relationships or changing the status quo on matters of religion and state.
It is within this reality that Smotrich can be seen as both an asset and a burden, and not just for Bennett, who will have to decide whether or not to continue his alliance with Smotrich in the upcoming election. The Israeli Right is at a point where it must decide in what direction it is headed and whether to continue its alliance with the ultra-Orthodox as well as Smotrich and the public he represents. The path the Right chooses could impact not only its future, but the identity of the country's leadership in the post-Netanyahu era.
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