Is Israel’s ‘right-wing’ government left-wing?

The current Israeli government boasts about its right-wing credentials and labels its critics as leftists. As I looked at the 2025 budget, it occurred to me that the government policies, especially regarding the ultra-Orthodox community, reveal something different.

Of course, the terms left and right have different meaning in different countries (and also at different time in the same country, but let’s speak about now). In Scandinavia, debates on migration and national identity often define the left-right divide more sharply than other issues. In Turkey, left-wing parties are often associated with nationalism while right-wing parties might advocate conservative Islamic values. India flips this dynamic. The dominant right-wing party (BJP) advocates Hindu nationalism, while left-leaning parties tend to be inclusive of minority religious groups. And so on and so forth.

In the United States, the Democratic party is on the left and the Republican party is on the right. In this blog post I use terms left and right accordingly: a policy associated with the Democratic party are left-wing and those associated with GOP are right-wing. This American sense of the left-right divide is relevant to Israel. Presumably, Netanyahu’s government is much closer to the GOP. It doesn’t hesitate to annoy Democrats, long-term interests of Israel notwithstanding. But are the polices of the Netanyahu government really right-wing in that American sense? Let’s have a look at fiscal and governance policies. Traditionally right-wing governments favor policies that encourage individual responsibility, employment, and equal civic duties, such as army service in the case of Israel. But, judging by the 2025 budget, Netanyahu government generously supports welfare policies that discourage the ultra-Orthodox from entering the workforce or serving in the military. These funds are being diverted from hard-working families who pay taxes and serve in the military. The harmful welfare and the active redistribution of wealth are squarely left-wing.

Republicans want small and efficient government. They don’t always do what they preach. The US national debt has been rising under Democratic and Republican administration. But the second Trump administration is actively trying to slim the government down and even created a mechanism for that, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, allegedly headed by Elon Musk. In contrast, Netanyahu’s government shamelessly inflates the government. They have more ministries then any previous Israeli government, by far. While cutting essential services, like education, they generously expanded coalition funds. This tendency toward ever bigger government is certainly closer to the policies of Democratic administrations. As far as this tendency is concerned, Netanyahu’s government went beyond of what any American administration could manage.

Some would argue that Netanyahu’s government policies are driven not by ideology but by political expediency. It struggles to survive. For Netanyahu himself, maintaining power may be his only alternative to facing judicial consequences. I sympathize with this argument. But, while motivations matter, it is the outcomes — the policies themselves — that directly affect Israeli citizens. The fiscal and governance policies clearly lean toward traditionally left-wing economic practices.

If I could, I would write a comedy where Elon Musk and his people come to Israel with a task to cut the government down in size and to make it more efficient. Well, it would be a tragicomedy. As the say, it would be funny if it weren’t so sad.