Israel's far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben-Gvir shaking hands with UAE
ambassador Mohamed Al Khaja at the United Arab Emirates embassy in Tel
Aviv during the UAE's 51st National Day event, 1 December 2022 [photo
credit: screengrab]
A prescient article
published by Haaretz before the 1 November election detailed the
ecstatic reception Ben-Gvir was given at a Tel Aviv high school, greeted
with the anti-Arab racist chant “your village should burn.” Shortly
afterward he came upon a group of Tel Aviv Scouts at a park outing where
the reception was “even more enthusiastic.”
The article quotes Zeev Degani the principal of another Tel Aviv high
school, Gymnasia Herzliya, inveighing against the decision to give
Ben-Gvir school access:
I obviously believe in free speech but free speech is only one
element in a democracy. Something even more basic is knowledge, and when
you have kids, like we have here, who grow up quite ignorant about
what’s going on around them, you’re asking for trouble when you invite a
fascist propagandist like Ben-Gvir in – especially considering that
kids by nature are drawn to extremists.
And he admitted to being surprised at the reception the avowed racist received:
I know I shouldn’t be, because surveys have shown that young
Israelis are far more racist than their European counterparts. But
still, the admiration these kids showed for him was a bit shocking. I
guess that’s what happens when there’s so much emphasis on nationalism
in the educational system and as we know, there’s a very small distance
between nationalism and fascism.
That distance has now been bridged as the abuse of Palestinians escalates. Where the killing of a wounded Palestinian attacker
six years ago occasioned some soul searching and a brief prison
sentence for the soldier who executed the attacker with a shot to the
head, the murder of an unarmed Palestinian, shot twice as he scuffled
with a police officer and then twice more as he lay on the ground passes
by, with Ben-Gvir, a powerful and prominent politician, saluting the
killer.
Just this past week, a primary school in the West Bank was demolished
after the children were herded out by the IDF, a rights activist
already stripped of his Jerusalem residency permit was threatened with deportation to France to where his wife and children have already been deported, an Arab reporter was surrounded on air by young settlers chanting “death to the Arabs”, another young Palestinian was shot dead by the IDF, four in one day and then two more later in the week.
As attack piles upon attack, incident upon incident the violence is
not just normalized it is weaponized by the Israeli state which behaves
with the sort of impunity which can only be secured through the
acquiescence of the UK, Europe and the United States.
Nour Odeh, the Palestinian journalist and political analyst speaking on the same programme
as Akiva Eldar talked of the “elephant in the room”, the international
community which has “allowed Israel to get away with all these acts of
aggression…countries have even gone so far as to consider the
Palestinian flag and keffiyah as symbols of incitement. That’s how far
the international community has gone to mute Palestinian voices and
silence their narrative.”
Amidst the international silence the careers of Smotrich and Ben-Gvir
flourish. Indeed the acquiescence lies not only at the door of Western
governments. On 30 November Ben-Gvir took up the invitation from the UAE
ambassador to attend a reception
at the Emirati embassy on the occasion of the UAE National Day. He was
warmly received by the ambassador and declared “this is what peace looks
like.”