It has been a sorry though predictable exercise. When he lived up (or down) to expectations of atrocious conduct befitting the proud bigot that he is, Israel’s Minister for National Security had to be seen as aberrant, the man who strayed, if only slightly. The conduct in question involved Itamar Ben-Gvir’s posting of footage on social media mocking the fate of activists of the Global Sumud Flotilla who had made a failed humanitarian effort to break the blockade of Gaza. The activists, seized in international waters by Israeli forces off the coast of Cyprus, had been blindfolded, their hands bound, and forced to kneel on the floor at the Port of Ashdod.
The caption of the posted video featured the warming caption “Welcome to Israel”. Ben-Gvir can be seen waving an Israeli flag, taunting the detainees with bellowing remarks. One bound man can be seen having to hear the words “The people of Israel live” shouted in his face.
Much of this would have been filed in a drawer under the title of “acceptable conduct” and gone unremarked. Ben-Gvir oversees the running of his country’s police and prisons, which he has served to corrupt and politicise with impunity. He has been given vast latitude to be brutal and brutish, most notably to Palestinians. With clear relish, he regularly posts videos of how Israel’s Prison Service treats its Palestinian inmates, which number somewhere in the order of 9,500. (About half are held under the Unlawful Combatants Law, a ghastly statute that negates due process and opportunities for the detained to rebut allegations made against them.)
He has also been riding the wave of foamy intolerance stimulated by the attacks of October 7, 2023 by Hamas on Israel, leading a successful campaign to apply the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of attacks on the State of Israel and the Jewish people (that same penalty does not apply to Israelis for acts of terrorism). On the occasion of his 50th birthday, his upstanding wife, Ayala, thought it fitting to present him with a cake decorated with a hangman’s noose. In previous comments, he has also expressed a preference for shooting Palestinian detainees in the head. And in terms of embracing the concept of a Greater Israel, Ben-Gvir is very much its podgy poster boy, indulging the murderous violence inflicted by fellow Israeli settlers in the West Bank upon their hapless Palestinian residents.
But Israel’s often smug propaganda establishment was not prepared for what followed. A number of countries whose citizens had been detained expressed official outrage. Israel’s ambassadors to Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Canada were summoned to seek formal clarifications about the position of the Netanyahu government.
The Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, along with her Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, declared the footage “unacceptable.” It was “intolerable for these protestors, including many Italian citizens, to be subjected to treatment that is so degrading to human dignity.” In addition to seeking the release of the Italian citizens, an apology was also sought “for the treatment of these protestors, and for the total disregard of the Italian Government’s explicit requests.”
The UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper expressed her concerns in a social media post. “I am truly appalled at the video posted by Israeli Cabinet Minister Ben-Gvir taunting those involved in the Global Sumud Flotilla.” The conduct had violated “the most basic standards of respect and dignity in the way people should be treated.” The families of a number of British nationals had also been contacted in the hope of providing consular support.
Anita Anand, Canada’s Foreign Minister, told reporters that her government took the matter “very, very seriously. It’s a matter of humane treatment of civilians, and I can assure you that we are acting with absolute urgency.” From Spain came the remarks of Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares that the treatment of the activists had been “monstrous”, while his Irish counterpart Helen McEntee expressed her shock at the footage while calling for the immediate release of the activists.
The South Korean President Lee Jae Myung went even further, casting an eye back to the entire seizure of the protestors at sea and posing a series of questions: “What is the legal basis? Is it Israeli territorial waters? Is that Israeli land? If there is conflict, can they seize and detain third-country vessels?”
From Paris came the scolding words of Foreign Minister Jean-Nöel Barrot: “We cannot tolerate French nationals being threatened, intimidated, or subjected to violence in this way, especially by a public official. I note that these actions have been condemned by a large number of Israeli governmental and political figures. On March 23, France went even further. “As from today,” announced Barrot, “Itamar Ben-Gvir is banned from entering French territory.” The decision was made in response to the minister’s “reprehensible actions towards French and European citizens who were passengers on the Global Sumud Flotilla.”
Faced with his fusillade of rage and query, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose form over substance. While Israel retained, according to his statement, “every right to prevent provocative flotillas of Hamas terrorist supporters from entering our territorial waters and reaching Gaza”, Ben-Gvir’s approach was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms.” Even then, the sense was that Ben-Gvir had only just exceeded expectations of otherwise justifiable conduct. He was, after all, responding to terrorist sympathisers and “provocateurs”. Furthermore, Netanyahu could never profess ignorance of Ben-Gvir’s scorpion sting, coming from a repulsive creature convicted of 13 criminal offences, including publishing incitement to racism, expressing identification with a terror group, possessing propaganda material of a terror group, participating in a riot and defacing property.
Prior to the elections in March 2021, Netanyahu told Channel 12 that the future minister in his cabinet was “not fit” for ministerial duties. When the interviewer pressed the PM on whether he considered Ben-Gvir a racist, Netanyahu blandly responded that, “His positions are not mine.” The Israeli PM is, however, a man who puts gritty political survival above keen principle, an approach that has ensured him a remarkable longevity in politics. His bigotry, no less felt than the far-right ministers he courts, is worn with softer, more acceptable shades.
Ben-Gvir, basking in the hot spotlight, is understandably confident in his survival as a member of the cabinet. Supreme Court scrutiny of his fitness for office will hardly prove a discouragement. “The days when terrorists want to hurt us, and we had to be apologetic, nice and understanding, are over,” he told the Knesset hours after posting the video. He need hardly have concerned himself: the obituary of such niceness and understanding had long ago been penned.