Itamar Ben-Gvir

JudaismPolitical FigureActivistJewish SupremacismUltra-Zionism

Jul 16

**Current status:** Minister of National Security

**DOB:** 6 May 1976

**Nationality:** Israeli

**Location:** Kiryat Arba illegal settlement, Occupied Palestine
**Ideology/Affiliation:** Jewish supremacism, Ultra-Zionism, Kahanism

**Type of Leader:** Activist, Politician

Biography

Itamar Ben-Gvir grew up in the affluent Jerusalem suburb of Mevaseret Zion. His father was born in Jerusalem to Iraqi Jewish immigrants.

Virulently anti-Palestinian, Ben-Gvir has been continuously convicted of incitement against Palestinians, and lives in what is considered to be one of the most violent settlements in the occupied West Bank. As a teenager, he adopted religious and radical right-wing Jewish views during the First Intifada. He first joined a right-wing youth movement affiliated with Moledet, a party which advocates eradication of Arabs from the Holy Land, and then joined the youth movement of the even more radical Kach and Kahane Chai party.

Ben-Gvir continued to be associated with the Kahanist movement, of which his party, Otzma Yehudit is said to be one of the ideological successors to Kahane. According to reports, he had a picture of Baruch Goldstein — the Israeli terrorist who carried out the Hebron mosque massacre in 1994 — on his wall.

Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party has interminably called for the annexation and colonization of the entire West Bank by Jews, in violation of international law, as well as the capture of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem's Old City and its transfer to Jewish control.

In 2022, Ben-Gvir reached a deal with Benjamin Netanyahu to join his incoming coalition government as the head of the new National Security Ministry. The new cabinet ministry will oversee control over the police forces and Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

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Banned

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Israeli Knesset

Evidence of Hate Speech/Incitement:

April 2023: The Israeli government approved the formation of a national guard, which opponents warn would function as a “private militia” of Ben-Gvir who had pushed for the decision.

February 2023: Ben-Gvir proposed a draft bill which, if it becomes law, will authorise the execution of Palestinian prisoners.

May 2021: During the peak of Sheikh Jarrah events, Ben-Gvir published a tweet, among many other related tweets, labeling the Palestinians who are defending themselves and their houses and standing against the threats by the Israeli government to be eradicated from Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood and their homes to be demolished without any legal grounding, as terrorist, he bragged by saying that he “stayed in Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood until the last terrorist left the place” and will stay there “until the police takes responsibility for the lives of the Jewish residents”.

May 2021: Kobi Shabtai, Israel's police chief has accused Ben-Gvir of adding fuel to the fire in Jerusalem and of being partly responsible for the violent demonstrations that have reignited the fuse of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.“The person who is responsible for this Intifada is Itamar Ben Gvir. It started with the Lehava protest at Damascus Gate,” Shabtai says. “It continued with provocations in Sheikh Jarrah, and now he is moving around with Lehava activists”. Ben-Gvir responded immediately by saying that Shabtai should be fired and accusing the police of not using enough force to control the Arab protests.

Throughout 2015: Ben-Gvir has previously defended Yinon Reuveni, who was convicted of carrying out the arson attack on the Church of Multiplication near the Sea of Galilee in 2015, and Amiram Ben-Uliel, a member of the "Hilltop Youth" movement who is accused for taking part in the arson attack against the Dawabsheh family in 2015.

June 2007: Ben-Gvir, the self-proclaimed Kahane spokesperson was found guilty of carrying placards reading “Expel the Arab enemy” and “Rabbi Kahane was right: The Arab MKs constitute a fifth column.” He was acquitted of identical charges for chanting "Death to the Arabs" in the aftermath of a Jerusalem explosion and said that banning the Kach movement was a joke.