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A campaign poster in Tel Aviv shows, from left, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Benjamin Netanyahu and Bezalel Smotrich. (Photo: Jamal Awad/Flash90)

Israel’s boosters across the political spectrum are panicking over the far-right’s victory in Israel’s election, and the reactions are telling. “We cannot remain silent knowing the enormous impact that the words and actions of Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich as senior ministers would have on the US-Israeli relationship,” writes Israel lobby stalwarts Dennis Ross and David Makovsky.

Right-wing Israeli politician Itamar Ben Gvir interacts with supporters in a Jerusalem market ahead of the general election, on October 28, 2022. (Photo: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa via ZUMA Press/APA Images)

It was hard not to witness the death of hope in Jerusalem on Tuesday night. Those who held out hope that the Israeli system would somehow resist the right, and exhibit tolerance — that hope was dashed by the Israeli election, in which the fascistic messianic right declared its grip over the Israeli Jewish psyche.

Now, a political crisis awaits liberal Zionists and the United States — everyone who has been lying to us about apartheid and democracy and telling us Israel is an idealistic fulfillment of Jewish sovereignty and shares American values.

On the eve of Israeli elections, the juggernaut of Religious Zionism is everywhere in West Jerusalem. The ascendance of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ban-Gvir reflects a hard, militant, unregenerate country moving further and further right and their rise is set to transform Israel’s image to the world.

Left: Ibrahim Nabulsi Right: a girl from the Old City of Nablus wearing a necklace of Nabulsi. (Photos: Shadi Jarar'ah/APA Images, and Mariam Barghouti/Mondoweiss)

On the day he would have turned 19, friends, family, and comrades gathered to remember and reflect on the life of the slain “Lion of Nablus.”

“Ibrahim al-Nabulsi is an idea,” B. a friend and comrade of Ibrahim al-Nabulsi said as he recalled the brutality of Al-Nabulsi’s assassination. “And ideas don’t die.”