Itamar Ben-Gvir: The face of Israel’s hard right — or the face of Israel?

In recent weeks, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has shown the world a version of “modern Israel” it had preferred not to see. From telling the press that he would “ not allow ” a United States ceasefire deal with Iran that was bad for Israel to his televised harassment of bound activists of the Global Sumud Flotilla, Ben-Gvir’s actions have drawn outrage on a global stage. Recommended Stories list of 4 items end of list It had been convenient to cast the far-right leader of the Jewish Power party as a political outlier within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. This allowed domestic critics of the far-right factions in Israel to continue supporting the government, and companies and countries outside to continue trade despite growing condemnations of the Israeli government. After public rebukes of Ben-Gvir’s taunting of the predominantly European activists by the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada – and even Israel’s foremost allies in the US – Netanyahu understood the deep damage this was doing to Israel’s public relations image , and described the spectacle as “not in line with Israel’s values and norms”. Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar went further, releasing a statement accusing his fellow cabinet minister of knowingly causing harm to the state of Israel and claiming that Ben-Gvir was “not the face of Israel”. …