Menachem Klein, a political science professor at Bar Ilan University, near Tel Aviv, said he doubted whether it was still possible for a secular government to be established without including some of the religious parties.
"It would be a nightmare," he told MEE. "Any move, whether allowing transport on Shabbat, dismantling settlements or talking to the Palestinian leadership would face an enormous social backlash if it was made without the sanction of the religious factions."
'Chosen people'A poll of Israeli Jews last year by the liberal Haaretz newspaper highlighted Israeli society's growing religiosity, which closely aligns with the rise of ultra-nationalism.
Some 54 percent of the Jewish public expressed a belief in God, with that figure rising to 78 percent among those describing themselves as on the right.
An overwhelming majority of right-wing Israelis 79 percent view Jews as the chosen people, and a similar number, 74 percent, believe Israel exists by divine promise.
Younger voters are markedly more religious than their grandparents 64 percent compared to 22 percent. Exactly half of young Israelis reject the scientific theory of evolution, and 58 percent believe in life after death. Haaretz noted a clear correlation between Israeli youth's growing religiosity and their embrace of right-wing views.
"If you think Israel is religious, conservative and hawkish enough as it is, wait for the fundamentalist theocracy that's lurking around the corner," the paper's analyst Chemi Shalev concluded.
Rallying the rightHow Israel's coming election plays out will depend on how successful Netanyahu is in rallying religious voters to the polling booth, either for Likud or for a handful of more overtly religious parties.
The religious right itself is characterised by three main blocs. All believe that the occupied territories belong exclusively to the Jewish people, and are united in their unabashed support for the settlements and the entrenchment of the occupation.
Political differences relate chiefly to matters of how quickly and brazenly the occupied territories should be annexed and how the Palestinian population there should be dealt with.
More significant than ideological differences, however, are the varied religious constituencies that each bloc represents.
Netanyahu's Likud party is the largest, and draws primarily on the support of religious traditionalists Israeli Jews who are generally observant and socially conservative.
Likud, Gurvitz noted, has moved more firmly into the religious camp since 2005 when its then-leader, Ariel Sharon, pulled the last remaining settlers out of Gaza. A backlash from the settlers effectively forced Sharon and his supporters out of Likud to create a short-lived secular faction called Kadima.
"What was left behind in Likud was the hard right," he said. "The party has been moving ever further to the right under Netanyahu."
Since then, the settlers and their allies have come to dominate Likud's internal committees, meaning none of its parliamentary candidates wish to risk alienating them, according to Gurvitz.
Politics of the rabbisThe second bloc comprises two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism, which look to their respective chief rabbis for political direction. Between them they won 16 seats in April.
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