The importance of last night’s appalling video of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting detainees from the latest Gaza flotilla is easy to misunderstand.
The immediate context of its revolting content is certainly clear. Ben-Gvir is a racist street thug who shames anything of which he is a part. Since he is a member of the Israeli Cabinet, that means he shames not just the current government but Israel itself.
But it’s important not to make the mistake of thinking that the content of the video – or rather the actual despicable treatment of the detainees – is simply an example of Ben-Gvir playing to his gallery. As Rachel Gur has pointed out: “This isn’t just political theatre or electoral pandering – it’s hard strategy. The goal of Ben-Gvir’s theatrics is to ensure that Israel is increasing isolated. An Israel that is turned inward, convinced that it is up against the wall, is an Israel where he can win elections.”
Ben Gvir is especially dangerous to Israel not just because of who he is, and what it says about the Israeli government that he is the national security minister. The danger he poses to Israel is even greater than that because his very goal is the sort of condemnation that has been widespread since the video first circulated. Israel has become inured to such statements in recent years because the usual suspects (including, one has to say, Britain) issue pro-forma condemnations even when Israel needs to be supported. But while those same usual suspects are of course condemning the Ben-Gvir video, it is nonetheless different. When the likes of Georgia Meloni, who has been a supporter of Israel’s right and need to defend itself from terror, joins them, it shows how Ben-Gvir’s behaviour is, on its own appalling terms, succeeding.
The idea that there is some actual security and deterrence purpose to his behaviour in the video is a red herring. Far from deterring future flotillas, both he and the flotilla members have a perverse parity of interest in more coming. Ben-Gvir revels in the outrage generated by his response to their arrival, and they revel in being able to show the world how Israel is the villain they paint it as. Ben Gvir is a godsend to the antisemites and "antizionists”. If they tried to construct an Israeli minister designed to repel the world and to win over moderates to their cause, they could hardly come up with a better creation than the national security minister. Rather than staying home in future to avoid such treatment, his behaviour incentivises them to return.
That is why he is so very dangerous to Israel – far more so than the mere fact of his views. Israel has every right to detain and then deport those who threaten its security. Other governments might make pro forma protests, but Israel can ignore such protests as the usual hot air, as would any government that is committed to the safety of its citizens. But Ben-Gvir’s behaviour turns what should be a run-of-the-mill detain and deport operation into an international outrage, and gives the detainees the patina of legitimacy. He plays into the hands of Israel’s enemies – and does so, as we have seen, quite deliberately.
In this context, it is at the same time both important and bizarre that Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, should criticise Ben-Gvir’s actions as “not in line with Israel’s values and norms.” Indeed so. Ben-Gvir repulses the overwhelming majority of Israelis. As foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar put it, “you are not the face of Israel”.
But Ben-Gvir did not become national security minister by accident. He was appointed by Netanyahu, breaking a convention that lasted since Israel’s independence in 1948 that no figures such as Ben-Gvir and Smotrich would ever be brought into government for one reason alone: so that Netanyahu could become and then remain prime minister. He needed their votes.
If we are to criticise Ben-Gvir’s presence in the government, one man is to blame: Benjamin Netanyahu. It is all very well him criticising his minister’s actions, but if it wasn’t for Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir would be no more than a racist street thug representing a fringe party in the Knesset. If Ben-Gvir is damaging Israel’s national security by his actions – and he is – then one man is blame for that.
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