Israel's new rock star politician Naftali Bennett strode into the Great Synagogue in Jerusalem flashing smiles at adoring supporters, as shutters clicked and excited whispers rippled through the audience.
On Tuesday, according to the polls, the voters will make him the second most powerful man in Israel. He will be either a formidable opposition leader, committed to blocking any attempt to give up land for peace, or more likely a partner in a coalition government, pushing a set of far Right policies that enrage Palestinians and risk a breakdown in Israel's already strained alliance with America.
Mr Bennett, 40, leader of the Jewish Home party [sic] (Habayit Yehudi), is the first Right-wing hipster in Israeli politics, campaigning in jeans and joking in Hebrew slang, and in an otherwise lacklustre general election campaign, he gets an excited reaction that rivals can only dream of. But although the image is casual, the hard line message is one that no other mainstream politician has ever dared to put forward.
"I am vehemently against a Palestinian state within the Land of Israel," he told the audience, gathered at the synagogue to hear candidates debate.
They roared with enthusiasm.
There is relative calm in the occupied territories, he told them. "We can ruin all this by establishing another Muslim state in our midst, like we did in Gaza, and get another 100 years of misery."
The audience loved it. The candidate from the left-wing Meretz party was booed when she outlined her intention of reviving an old plan to get the peace process going.
Israel's voters are used to choosing from a list of bearded rabbis, party hacks with corruption charges hanging over them, and earnest Left-wingers who make them feel guilty. Mr Bennett's message of unrepentant Jewish nationalism has blown through Israel's dusty political world, reaching places where nobody thought it ever would. » | Nick Meo, Jerusalem | Saturday, January 19, 2013
