ISRAEL’S PR PROBLEM IS SUMMED UP IN ONE MAN — ITAMAR BEN-GVIR
This madman is a real sweetheart. Say hello to Itamar Ben Gvir. To call him an extremist is an insult to extremists. His latest antics pose a threat to Bibi Netanyahu’s ability to retain a governing coalition. The Times of Israel reports tonight that:
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Tuesday threatened to break apart the government if Israel does not restart its war with Hamas, currently on a negotiated pause.
“Stopping the war = breaking apart the government,” he said in a statement. . . .
Last week, Ben Gvir and Otzma Yehudit’s two other ministers were the only cabinet ministers to oppose an agreement for Hamas to release hostages taken in the terror group’s October 7 onslaught in southern Israel, in exchange for a four-day ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Palestinian prisoners and an increase in the flow of aid into the Strip.
Quite a meltdown. But, like most of Ben Gvir’s wild statements and antics, this is a bit hollow. If he and his two buddies walk away it will not torpedo Netanyahu’s ability to stay in power. In fact, I suspect Bibi will breathe a sigh of relief with the departure of this crackpot.
Just a few days ago Itamar was boiling mad over scenes of jubilant Palestinians celebrating the release from captivity of their loved ones. It chafed his corpulent ass.
Ben Gvir’s subsequent action to quell such celebrations was a PR disaster. It emboldened Israel’s critics around the world and reinforced the growing perception that Israel is an apartheid, authoritarian state. Ben Gvir:
instructed police to employ “an iron fist” against attempts to celebrate the expected release of Palestinian terrorists as part of the hostages deal with Hamas, a readout from Ben-Gvir’s office said on Thursday.
“My instructions are clear: There are to be no expressions of joy,” Ben-Gvir told Israel Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai and Israel Prison Service Commissioner Katy Perry.
How does any sane person go about quashing “expressions of joy.” This reminds me of the time in the late 1990s when I was on CNN’s CrossFire with Alan Dershowitz debating what should be the fate of Jonathan Pollard. When Alan insisted that Pollard was not a spy I burst out laughing. Dershowitz was momentarily stunned by my reaction and then proceeded to demand that I stop laughing. My response, I laughed harder. His attempted defense of Pollard was so absurd that I could think of no more appropriate retort.
What Itamar Ben Gvir wants to do to Palestinians is no laughing matter. Think of it. Ordering people who are welcoming a loved one home after years of separation not to celebrate is the very definition of a dictatorship.
To be fair, Itamar is just as big an ass with Israelis.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has demanded citizenship and work visas of football players who refused to hold signs calling for prisoners of war being held by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza be released, Israeli media reported.
According to the reports, Ben-Gvir yesterday sent an “explosive” letter to Interior Minister Moshe Arbel after a football match during which Maccabi Haifa’s Swedish player, Daniel Sundgren, and other players refused to hold an English-language sign demanding the captives’ return.
I guess this helps explain why Ben Gvir’s approval rating among the Israeli citizens is 29%. The New Yorker did a piece on Ben Gvir last February that accurately defines this disgrace of a human being:
No one, however, offends liberal and centrist Israelis quite like Itamar Ben-Gvir. Ben-Gvir, who entered parliament in 2021, leads a far-right party called Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power. His role model and ideological wellspring has long been Meir Kahane, a Brooklyn rabbi who moved to Israel in 1971 and, during a single term in the Knesset, tested the moral limits of the country. Israeli politicians strive to reconcile Israel’s identities as a Jewish state and a democracy. . . .
Ben-Gvir, who is forty-six, has been convicted on at least eight charges, including supporting a terrorist organization and incitement to racism, compiling a criminal record so long that, when he appeared before a judge, “we had to change the ink on the printer,” Dvir Kariv, a former official in the Shin Bet intelligence agency, told me. As recently as last October, Netanyahu refused to share a stage with him, or even to be seen with him in photographs. But a series of disappointing elections persuaded Netanyahu to change his mind.
Itamar has no sense of irony. Here he is, an eight time convicted terrorist, decrying Hamas terrorists. I guess it takes one to know one.