Itamar Ben-Gvir

Itamar Ben-Gvir (born May 6, 1976, Mevaseret Zion, Israel) Israeli lawyer and politician who since 2019 has led the far-right party Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit). He currently serves as Israel’s minister of national security (2022– ).

Early life and radicalization

Ben-Gvir was born in 1976 to a Mizrahi Jewish family. His mother was born in Iraqi Kurdistan, but as a teenager she immigrated to Palestine while it was under British mandate. She joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi, an underground movement and militia that fought British rule and sought self-determination for Jews in Palestine. Ben-Gvir’s paternal grandparents were also born in Iraq, but his father was born in Jerusalem. Like many Mizrahi Jews, Ben-Gvir’s parents were relatively conservative and observant of religious traditions. However, they were not dogmatic: they did not consider themselves particularly religious and sometimes voted for the left-wing Labour Party.

The year after Ben-Gvir was born, the first right-wing government since Israel’s independence came to power, bolstered by the salient support of working-class Mizrahi voters. Its prime minister, Menachem Begin, concluded a peace treaty with Egypt (see Camp David Accords), allowing the government to focus less intently on the Arab-Israeli conflict and concentrate more on domestic issues. Moreover, Begin’s government annexed East Jerusalem in 1980, and in subsequent years the government increased its expropriation of land in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip while taking a harder line on Palestinian dissent within Israel and the occupied territories. Although these policies were popular with the Israeli right, Palestinians’ frustrations came to a head after a deadly collision in December 1987 between an Israeli army truck and two vans carrying Palestinian workers. The incident became the catalyst for the first intifada, an uprising of Palestinians that continued until September 1993.

It was during the intifada that a young Ben-Gvir began taking on hard-line views. He became active in the newly formed Moledet (Homeland) Party, whose platform centred on the transfer of Palestinians out of Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. He later became a youth coordinator for the Kach movement, a political party founded by the fiery Meir Kahane and known for its overt anti-Arab racism, before it was outlawed in 1994.

Yitzhak Rabin, the hawkish defense minister (and erstwhile prime minister), likewise took a forceful approach toward the uprising. But as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) proved unable to quell the unrest, Rabin became convinced that it was necessary to engage politically with the Palestinians. In 1992 he was again elected prime minister and, the following year, he reached an agreement with the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to implement a two-state solution.

Hard-liners on both sides of the conflict were outraged by their leaders’ concession of land, and a cycle of violence was unleashed. In 1994, during the overlap of the Jewish festival of Purim and the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Kach supporter Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshipers at the Cave of Machpelah (also called the Tomb of the Patriarchs) in Hebron, a holy site frequented by both Jews and Muslims. The following year on Purim, a festival celebrated in Israel by donning costumes, Ben-Gvir dressed as Goldstein and declared him his hero. His admiration of Goldstein was not short-lived: he made annual visits to Goldstein’s grave and kept a portrait of him inside his home until 2020.

Despite the escalating violence, Rabin moved forward with the peace plan and handed control of six West Bank cities to the Palestinian Authority in September 1995. Many Israelis were outraged, and Ben-Gvir was among the activists to take action. On October 11 he reflected the heat of the moment when he appeared on Israeli television holding an emblem that had been stolen from Rabin’s Cadillac. He said, stoically: “Just as we got to this emblem, we can get to Rabin.” Rabin was assassinated three weeks later after attending a peace rally.

Ben-Gvir was exempted from compulsory conscription in the IDF. Because his views were considered too extreme, he was prevented from serving in the military. After his exemption, he attended Yeshivat HaRa’ayon HaYehudi, a religious school that had been founded by Kahane.

From lawbreaking to lawmaking

In the 2000s Ben-Gvir studied law at Ono Academic College even as he tested the law’s limits. He faced dozens of charges that decade, most of which resulted in acquittal or dismissal. His convictions included incitement of racism and support for a terrorist organization.

After Ben-Gvir earned a law degree in 2008, the Israel Bar Association (IBA) initially prevented him from taking the bar exam because of his criminal convictions. He later challenged the IBA’s decision to keep him from taking the exam and presented examples of extreme left-wing activists who had in the past been permitted to take it. Meanwhile, he gained legal experience by serving as an aide for Knesset member Michael Ben-Ari, who had a similar far-right pedigree, and by accompanying indicted right-wing activists to their court hearings. A committee ultimately determined that Ben-Gvir could sit the bar exam, but it required him to resolve outstanding cases against him before he could be admitted to the bar.

In 2012, after successfully challenging the IBA and resolving the pending cases against him, he received a license to practice law. He worked with Honenu, a legal-aid organization that describes itself as providing legal counsel for Israelis charged while “defending themselves against Arab aggression” or “due to their love for Israel.” Its clientele includes Israeli settlers and activists who have been accused of incitement or vandalism directed toward Palestinians. Ben-Gvir was among the attorneys who represented Honenu’s most notorious client, Amiram Ben Uliel. Uliel was charged with murder in an arson attack on a Palestinian home in the West Bank village Duma in 2015; he was convicted in 2020.

Meanwhile, the makeup of the Israeli right was shifting. The coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu collapsed in 2012 after losing the support of the religious right. He sought to bolster his support through an electoral alliance with the secular right party Yisrael Beiteinu. Sensing an opportunity to court Yisrael Beiteinu voters who were concerned about a centrist government under Netanyahu, Ben-Ari and three other right-wing politicians formed the Power to Israel (Otzma LeYisrael) party to contest the elections in 2013. Ben-Gvir was on its list of candidates for Knesset representation. However, the party failed to garner much support after many right-wing voters flocked to the party of Naftali Bennett, a political newcomer whose proposed plan to annex much of the West Bank invigorated supporters of settlement expansion. Ben-Ari’s party did not gain any seats in the Knesset until the March 2021 elections, when it ran a joint list under the Religious Zionism faction. By then Ben-Gvir was head of the party, now known as Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit), and became its sole representative in the parliamentary body.

Following that set of elections in 2021, Bennett became prime minister. Although he had been a darling of the right, he headed a historically broad—and fragile—coalition that included left-wing parties as well as a party representing the interests of Palestinian citizens of Israel. His government carried out centrist policies that avoided alienating his allies on the left, but opponents claimed those policies undermined Israel’s Jewish identity. Bennett was soon abandoned by many of his supporters and in June 2022 found his government without the backing to carry out essential policies. He dissolved the Knesset and decided not to contest early elections. Looking for an alternative among the right-wing parties, Bennett’s voter base turned to the Religious Zionism faction.

As Ben-Gvir courted voters in the 2020s, he also moderated his rhetoric toward something more palatable to the Israeli mainstream. In 2022 he was seen on camera correcting a supporter who chanted “Death to Arabs!”—a mantra commonly heard at far-right rallies. Ben-Gvir implored him instead to chant “Death to terrorists!” Likewise he renounced his earlier calls for expelling Palestinian citizens of Israel and instead called for expelling terrorists (whether Palestinian or Jewish). Yet the extent to which he was actually moderating his views was unclear. In 2023, for example, he claimed that “displaying a [Palestinian] flag is a form of supporting terror,” indicating a loose definition of the term terrorist.

Tenure as minister of national security

After elections were held in November 2022, Ben-Gvir emerged as a kingmaker. The election was a watershed for Israel’s right-wing bloc, and Netanyahu had the most support of any party leader to form a government. But because he was on trial for corruption, he stood little chance of forming a stable coalition with any centre or left-wing parties. He relied solely on the support of nationalist and religious factions, which were generally more concerned about secularization under a potential centre-left government than they were about Netanyahu’s trials. Religious Zionism had become the largest of those factions, and Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party commanded 6 of its 14 seats. (The faction’s constituent parties later split after the election, giving Ben-Gvir greater maneuverability to act independently.) After forming a coalition with 64 out of 120 Knesset members, Netanyahu appointed Ben-Gvir to head the ministry of national security, and the coalition passed legislation that would give him greater oversight over law enforcement.

The new government quickly made a splash, and Ben-Gvir was front and centre. Just days after the cabinet ministers took office, Ben-Gvir made a provocative visit to the Temple Mount, stirring anxieties among Palestinians about Muslims’ access to and custodianship of one of Islam’s holiest sites (see Al-Aqsa Mosque and Temple of Jerusalem). A visit by Ariel Sharon in 2000, then a contender for prime minister, set off the second intifada.

Attempts to overhaul the judiciary in early 2023 also brought attention to Ben-Gvir. The proposal, which originated in the Religious Zionism faction but drew controversy over its changes to Israel’s checks and balances, led to massive unrest. Ben-Gvir took a hard stance on the escalating protests, and, when Netanyahu decided to pause the reforms amid nationwide strikes, Ben-Gvir threatened to quit the coalition. He ultimately agreed to the pause, however, after Netanyahu offered to float the creation of a national guard under the purview of Ben-Gvir’s ministry.