The Israeli Left is consistent in its nihilism: they want atheist democracy instead of Judaism, to strip Israel of ideologically sensitive areas lest they become a rallying point for right-wingers, and to abandon security so that Israel will be forced to rely on gentile powers and dance to their tune. So, basically, leftists need to do nothing: they achieve their goals just by leaving things to their own. Normally, it is the other way around: right-wingers are conservative and tend toward inaction while leftists seek changes. Israeli right-wingers have to change the deeply entrenched leftist system. The only way to achieve that is to abandon misguided conservatism and adopt radicalism, the garb of those who wish to change their state. Take, for example, the Maccabees. Religious fundamentalists and arch-conservatives, they opted for utter radicalism and started a brutal civil war, which unsuspecting Jews now celebrate as Hanukkah.

But look at the fake right-wingers who won the Israeli elections. It is unnecessary to speak of Likud, whose aims are as leftist as those of Meretz. Netanyahu subscribes to the peace process with minor modifications. In a sense, he is more pro-Palestinian than Meretz: while ultra-leftists just want to disengage from the territories, Netanyahu would also help the Palestinians develop economically.

Watch Lieberman. His “No loyalty, no citizenship” slogan was invented by an advertising copywriter. Lieberman’s own goal was much more moderate: “No national service, no national security.” Neither of these formulations has any chance of passing through the Knesset because the anti-Zionist ultra-Orthodox parties’ constituency does not go for national service and would resist the oath of allegiance. Without haredi parties, right-wingers cannot possibly assemble enough votes for the law. Chances that Kadima would jeopardize its support among Arabs by voting for such a law are slim.

In terms of the population exchange, Lieberman’s program is unworkable in the international legal framework: Israel and Palestine cannot make an agreement which strips Israeli Palestinians of their citizenship; no one’s citizenship can be forfeited summarily. I’m the last person to care about international law where it contradicts Jewish objectives, but if Lieberman is ready to provoke a major outcry by stripping Israeli Arabs of citizenship, why not accept an only slightly louder outcry and expel the Arabs thirty miles farther, to Jordan?

Lieberman vows to keep the Temple Mount and Golan Heights under Israeli jurisdiction. Very good, but what’s so rightist about that? Syria refrains from attacking Israel not because it lacks a beachhead on the Golans but for fear of Israeli retaliation. The Golan Heights are not critical to Israel in religious or military terms. It is good and just for Israel to annex the Heights after three wars with Syria, but the annexation goal is unrelated to rightist views. Indeed, the Knesset left-wingers supported the annexation law.

To keep the Temple Mount is a laudable goal, but is it rightist? What’s the point of preserving the place as a constant humiliation to Jews who pray at the support wall below while Muslims embellish their structures on the Mount? A right-winger—indeed any normal Jew—would tear down the Muslim shrines which pollute the Third Temple’s site.

The fake right-wingers call to preserve Israel’s Jewishness. Israel’s what? What makes our state Jewish? If Arabs constituted half the population, what law they could conceivably enact to make the state still less Jewish? Muslim shrines occupy the Temple Mount, Arabs swarm Judea and Samaria and Small Israel, the Arab language is an official one, non-Jews constitute a third of the Israeli population, Judaism is thoroughly exorcised from state affairs, Jews are dying from attacks in larger numbers here than anywhere in the world, and the government treats them more harshly than Arabs. The only Jewish entitlement in Israel is to be ruled by Jewish political dregs.

Only in the political vacuum created by the Kach ban could Likud and Yisrael Beitenu be regarded as right-wing parties. In reality, they represent a fearful centrist position of preserving some traces of Jewishness while abrogating its substance. If a true right-wing leader arose, the voters would see that Netanyahu and Lieberman are just slightly more aggressive versions of Barak and Livni.
The real right-wing agenda is straightforward:

- The Israeli state is rooted in Judaism. Thus, no paid work on Shabbat, no leaven on Pesach, and no homosexuals at any time. The state need not be ultra-Orthodox, but whatever the Torah says explicitly, we do.
- Besides Jews, only converts (gerim) are allowed to live in Israel. Pagans (Thais, for example) are not allowed here even as workers or tourists.
- Israel’s boundaries stretch from Suez to Litani, and from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. We don’t push for those borders, but whatever we hold is ours forever.

And go restore the Temple.