League for New Judea
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League for New Judea Northern League (colloquially) הליגה של ניו יהודה | |
|---|---|
| name | Modern Hebrew |
| Leader | Nosson Gevura |
| Interior Minister | Nosson Gevura |
| Founded | January 3, 1974 |
| Split from | Alliance for New Judea (Sydalon) |
| Headquarters | Yericho, Yarden River Valley |
| Newspaper | Northern League Daily News |
| Student wing | Northern League Students Union |
| Ideology | Ultranationalism Conservatism Strong monarchy Social conservatism Internal Factions: Torah Judaism National conservatism |
| Political position | Far Right |
| Colors | Maroon |
| Seats in the Royal Knesset | 0 / 142
|
The League for New Judea, more commonly called the Northern League or the Maroons (colloquially), is a contemporary far right and ultranationalist minor political party in Yisrael. The Northern League was formerly apart of the coalition majority Right Bloc government in the Knesset led by the Royalist Conservatives, whose leader Yitzchok Katz is the incumbent President. In the Katz administration, the League formerly held the Cabinet post of the Ministry of the Interior, held by its longtime former Leader, David Touro, between January 2020 and April 2022.
The Northern League is a split off of the designated terror group Alliance for New Judea, a Pan-Yisraelist extremist group that seeks to tear up the Yarden Accords and forcibly annex the north bank of the Sydalene-controlled Yarden River Valley as well as expel all Yisraeli Christians from Yisrael.
David Touro, the longtime leader of the Northern League between 2006-2022, who was responsible for its rebirth as a 'respectable' party with representation in the Knesset, has repeatedly beat back allegations about the party's pre-1974 split, reiterating that it has rejected the terrorist tactics and most hard-line policies advocated by the Alliance and sought to effect change peacefully through the political process inside Yisrael. Critics have pointed out that Touro's party is simply a false "moderate" façade to distract from controversial policies and a terrorist past. The League argues that its rejection of terrorism and more moderated policies cleanse it of any association with the Alliance, which is still an active terror group in Sydalon.
Throughout the late 2000s and 2010s, the League feuded in particular with members of the Torah Achdus, who advocated a more restrained foreign policy and stance towards non-Jews. However, under the mediation of Yitzchok Katz, at the start of the 2020s, both parties seem to be in an uneasy peace. In the 2022 midterm elections, the League was evicted from the Knesset and suffered numerous local losses in the Yarden River Valley to surprise upstart ethnic Christian party Christian Voice.
Touro himself defected to the Conservatives in mid-April 2022, resigning his leadership and membership roles, contributing to the party's reeling political stature after the 2022 midterms.
Platform and philosophy
The party has gone through several iterations, some more radical or moderate depending on if it wanted to enter the government or just to make a political point. Between 2006-2022, under David Touro, the Northern League is considered a "soft" far right political party whose policies are at the very edge of the political mainstream's right-wing flank. Currently, with new hardliner leadership and a radicalizing voter and activist base due to the 2022 Sydalon diplomatic crisis, observers in and out of the party perceive it to be swinging its ideological pendulum back to a controversial, conspiracy-tinged far-right position.
For much of the 21st century, the party has been a staunchly national conservative party that favors a stronger monarchy, law and order policies that strengthen the powers of law enforcement, a hawkish foreign policy stance and liberal use of the Royal Yisraeli Defense Forces against open geopolitical foes such as Talahara, Gran Aligonia (between 2019-2020), and - increasingly - the Sydalon (2022-present), the implementation of a specific loyalty oath to all residents of the Yarden River Valley in response to Christian terrorism based there, as well as more government support for domestic industry and an expansion of the limited public welfare system. It calls for a referendum in the Zivan Strip, seeking the return of the border region that Yisrael ceded to Ascalzar.
Pre-2006, when the party was simply a vehicle for far-right protest votes, it was virulently Yarden Revisionist, including calling for the population exchange of all Yisraeli Christians for all Sydalene Jews and the annexation of the north bank of the Sydalene-controlled Yarden Valley. As of 2022, many of those older ideas have become in vogue again amongst party ranks.
History
1974-2006
2006-2022
Under Touro's leadership, the mainstay of the party's elected officials and political class shifted slightly more to the center, rebranding as a "national conservative" party, though analysts still by and large affixed the epithet "far-right" to their brand. Occasionally, League politicians would apologize after being caught tweeting or posting offensive comments, often aimed at Christians and foreigners.
Many Northern League voters and activists, however, have been caught engaging in hooliganism and harassment actions against Yisraeli Christians and Chiloni Jews over the years in their political stronghold of the Yarden River Valley. Over 4,000 police complaints were lodged with the Yarden River Valley Special District Civil Security forces between 2011 and 2020, a fact that Touro blamed on "fringe radicals" when confronted by the press during the 2020 elections. Left Bloc media activists noted that many LNJ "Internet trolls" on social media outlets like Rad.io and others regularly mock and make slurs at a number of groups, including Christians, secular-leaning Jews, Sydalenes, and others.
After Noah Feldman's re-election in 2016, a feud between the Conservatives and Torah Achdus, as well as a massive surge in support for the League across MK constituencies across northern and northwestern Yisrael, caused the RCP to ally legislatively with the League between 2016-2022. A close Touro associate was made a Cabinet minister in the second Feldman term, and Touro himself enjoyed status as a new political power-broker.
However, by 2020, the League's success was starting to wane, as northern conservative voters shifted back their allegiances to more mainstream parties and several corruption scandals plagued League members in the Yarden Valley District and in the Knesset. After cresting with an unprecedented 11 MK seats in 2016, after 2018 the party was cut in more than in half in the Knesset, falling to five MKs. In 2020, the historic three-way presidential race sucked up too much oxygen from third parties, and the LNJ again lost half its seats, falling to two MKs, both in its stronghold of the Yarden River Valley Special District. Touro, who lost his seat in 2020, was plucked by President-elect Katz to shore up hard-right votes as his Interior Minister.
As of the 2022 midterm elections, intraparty factionalism between royalists and partisans of Yitzchok Katz broke out into the open. Just before the midterms, a shocking upset by brand-new ethnic Christian party Christian Voice with candidate Elyas Khoury won a special election, taking one of the League's two remaining seats. Its last MK lost in the general election.
Meanwhile, League Yarden Valley District governor Benni Schloss lost re-election to a spring coalition led by the Nat-Libs, and the League fell behind across the board. As of February 2022, party leader David Touro remains the most prominent Leaguer in office, as President Katz's Interior Minister. This lasted briefly, as by mid-April 2022, Touro left the party due to rising disagreements between his vision and that of many grassroots party activists in the Hezekian era and deepening 2022 Sydalon diplomatic crisis.
2022-present
Following Touro's departure and the loss of many experience League politicians from office, such as ex-Yarden Valley Special District governor Benni Schloss, the party's executive council appointed Nosson Gevura as the temporary party chief. Gevura (Hebrew for "strength"/"restraint") is regarded by League watchers as a hardliner more in line with the radicalized turn observed by many in and outside of the party as the 2020s have progressed.
An April 25, 2022 Interior Ministry report directly linked numerous League figures and activists as among those extremist "far-right Jewish hardliners" engaged in escalating sectarian ethnoreligious strife and discord with Yarden River Valley Christians, espousing pan-nationalist and hateful rhetoric online and engaging in multiple incidents of "assaults and batteries" in League-loyal Jewish neighborhoods in the Yarden and beyond.
Organization and hierarchy
Election results and current representation
Current representation
The Northern League currently have no MKs in the Royal Knesset. It was apart of the governing majority, led by the Conservatives, which also included the Torah Achdus party, from 2016-2022. As of 2022, it is no longer represented in the Knesset.
League leader Nosson Gevura, also a city councilor in Yericho, was appointed to his party role in mid-April 2022.
Former representation
During the second term of Conservative former President Noah Feldman (2016-2020), League member and Touro confidant Yuri Greenspun held the Cabinet post of Minister of Religious Affairs. He was the first member of the League to sit in the Cabinet since the party's founding.
From January 2020-April 2022, the party led by establishment-oriented David Touro (2006-2022) held the post of Minister of the Interior under President Yitzchok Katz (2020 - present). With Touro's departure from the party, the party has no prominent members in office and retains some electoral holdings in select Yarden Valley city councils and mayorships.
Election results
| Royal Knesset | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Election | Leader | Seats won | +/− | Rank | Majority | |||
| 2022 | David Touro | 0 / 142
|
 1
|
N/A1 | Not in Government1 | |||
| 2020 | David Touro | 2 / 142
|
3
|
#6 | Majority | |||
| 2018 | David Touro | 5 / 142
|
6
|
#6 | Majority | |||
| 2016 | David Touro | 11 / 142
|
 9
|
#4 | Majority | |||
| 2014 | David Touro | 2 / 142
|
1
|
#7 | Minority | |||
| 2012 | David Touro | 3 / 142
|
2
|
#6 | Minority | |||
| 2010 | David Touro | 5 / 142
|
3
|
#4 | Minority | |||
| 2008 | David Touro | 2 / 142
|
2
|
#7 | Minority | |||
| 2006 | 0 / 142
|
N/A | N/A | Not in Government | ||||
| 2004 | 0 / 142
|
TBD | N/A | Not in Government | ||||
Notes
1. The Norther League had two seats going into the 2022 midterms. Two months before the general election, upstart party Christian Voice's Elyas Khoury won an upset in the November 7, 2021 special election in the Yarden Valley, winning the Yarden Valley 1st MK seat, which was previously held by LNJ member Uri Simcha before his resignation after an indictment for corruption and nepotism. The League had one remaining seat, Yarden's 3rd MK seat by Putiel Glassman, which it narrowly lost, thus losing all of its representation as the 50th session of Knesset opened.
International affiliation and criticism
The League has no international affiliations.
- Despite its split with the terrorist organization of the same name, the League faces criticism from nearly all ends of the Sydalene political spectrum due to its past and current stance on the Yarden Accords. The criticism grew when the League joined the governing coalition in the Knesset, with many commenting that the addition was an unnecessary danger when a majority was possible between other coalition members: Royalist Conservatives and Action Yisrael. Supporters of the Accords accuse the Conservatives of skirting the wrong side of a fine line, while more extremist factions in Sydalon equate the party to its terrorist counterpart and called the party's inclusion express support of extremist terrorism along both sides the border.