Judaism And The Democracy Dilemma: Meir Kahane’s Abnormal Israeli Utopia

Abstract

This article examines the ideas of Rabbi Meir Kahane regarding democracy, secular Zionism, and liberalism, which have resurfaced with the prominence of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich in the far-right coalition formed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in 2022. The resurgence of Kahanism, once believed to have faded after Kahane’s death in 1990, has raised concerns that Israel’s liberal-democratic structure is under threat. Ben Gvir’s extremist and racist policies toward Palestinians, together with Smotrich’s emphasis on a theocratic order centred on the Jewish character of the state, have reinforced assessments of democratic decline. The article traces the origins of Kahanism by examining the life trajectory of Meir Kahane, widely regarded as a manifestation of his ideological framework. It analyses his conception of an “abnormal” Israel -rejecting democracy, liberalism, and normalisation- which led to his disqualification from politics following the 1987 amendment to the Basic Laws. Kahane argued that Israel’s adoption of legal norms derived from non-Jewish nations contradicted its Jewish character and that granting equal citizenship rights to non-Jews within a liberal-democratic order would undermine the doctrine of chosenness and threaten Israel’s existence. The renewed visibility of Kahane’s critiques of democracy, secular Zionism, and liberalism in the policies of Ben Gvir and Smotrich suggests that the long-standing balance between Israel’s Jewish and democratic identities has reached a breaking point. It also indicates that Kahanist thought has evolved from a marginal movement into an influential ideological current in contemporary Israeli politics.