| Abstract: | Over the last ten years, a sizeable body of social science research has been devoted to two troubling phenomena—right-wing extremism and religious fundamentalism—both of which have seen a recrudescence in the last two decades. While the first is largely a secular phenomenon, the latter is, by definition, religious in orientation. Although most literature has treated these phenomena separately, in Israel the overlap between the two is so extensive that it could very well serve as the basis for a generating hypothesis. Utilizing features of both European right-wing extremism and characteristics of fundamentalism, Bermanis, Canetti-Nisim and Pedahzur attempt to demonstrate how the extreme right, with its secular underpinnings, has withdrawn from the larger picture, and how a new, complex and more extremist approach, based on fundamentalist ideals, has taken its place. |
