Itamar Ben-Gvir, an Israeli politician, refers to his Arab peers as “terrorists.” He desires to expel his political rivals, and when he was younger, the army forbade him from serving in the military because of his extremist ideas.
The populist legislator, who was previously banished to Israel’s periphery of politics, is now racing ahead in the polls in advance of the November elections. He has the support of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is about to become a significant force that might help bring the former leader back into office.
The result of years of work by the media-savvy politician to establish credibility is Ben-Gvir’s astonishing ascension. But it also shows a rightward trend among Israeli voters, which has effectively put a stop to prospects for Palestinian independence by mainstreaming his religious, ultranationalist worldview.
Ben-Gvir recently told reporters, “Over the last year, I’ve been on a quest to preserve Israel.” “Millions of people are eagerly awaiting a genuine right-wing administration. Now is the right moment to gift them one. Ben-Gvir, 46, rose to prominence as a follower of the late hardline rabbi Meir Kahane in his adolescence and has been a mainstay of Israel’s far-right for more than two decades.
Rise to Fame
When he notoriously smashed a shifter knob off of then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s automobile in 1995, he initially rose to national prominence. Just a few weeks later, a Jewish fanatic antagonistic to Rabin’s peace negotiations with the Palestinians shoot him. He said, “We got to his automobile, and we’ll get to him as well.
In response to Kahane’s harsh anti-Arab rhetoric, which included demands to outlaw Jewish-Arab unions and for the systematic deportation of Palestinians, Israel barred him from the Knesset and the United States designated his party as a terrorist organization. 1990 saw the murder of Kahane by an Arab attacker in New York.
But in recent years, largely because of Ben-Gvir, his adherents and some of his ideology have entered the Israeli mainstream.
After practicing law for a while and representing radical Jewish West Bank residents, he entered politics last year. He has been able to push the limits of the nation’s provocation laws and dodge penalties that have prohibited some of his closest friends from competing in elections thanks to his intimate knowledge of the law.
For instance, Ben-Gvir describes Kahane as “good and holy,” but he also adds that he doesn’t concur with all his old guru stated. He takes cautious to restrict his own demands for removal to those who use aggression and politicians, whether Jewish or Arab, who, in his view, damage the state.
He took down a picture of Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who shot and killed 29 Palestinians in a mosque in 1994, from his lounge room before he entered politics. At political events, he no longer permits his followers to yell “Death to Arabs.” They are instructed to say, “Death to terrorists,” instead.
Ben-Gvir’s followers claim that he has matured, been misrepresented, or incorrectly portrayed as an extreme.
