ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to identify the sequence of events that produced the Israeli Radical Right, portray it as a political culture, and examines its political dynamics. Profoundly influenced by the growing European Radical Right, they all agreed on a principled rejection of democracy and hostility toward socialism. The success of Labor Zionism in building the Zionist "state in the making" further diminished the historical role of the Right and the Radical Right. The 1947 United Nations Partition Resolution, the 1948 war of independence and the establishment of the State of Israel made the grand vision of the Radical Right rather unrealistic. Within the nationalist camp, the Israeli Radical Right is presently a great deal more than the movements that are directly associated with it. The extralegal doctrine of the Radical Right, which matured between 1979 and 1984, had a by-product that also emerged at that time: the settlers' conception of self-defense and vigilantism.
