A month ahead of the March 23 Knesset election, Israel Hayom joined leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party Itamar Ben-Gvir for a day of campaigning.
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"If only 20% of the people we met today who said they would vote for me, do, we're in good shape," he says when the day is over.
"That 20%, I think, will join the Religious Zionist party and give us seven seats," he says.
It is impossible to ignore the enthusiasm of the crowds that met Ben-Gvir on a tour of cities in Israel's south. But even if everyone who likes him wants to vote for the list he has joined, it's not certain they will know to pick the ballot labeled "Religious Zionist." Ben-Gvir, who was met with excited shouts on visits to Dimona, Netivot, and Beersheba, is admired there not because he is a religious Zionist. It's doubtful he is seen here as belonging to religious Zionism, or whether the people realize that there is now a list that bears that name, as they shout "Otzma Yehudit!" (Jewish Power).
"In these areas, religious Zionist is seen as something for certain sectors. I connect with them as people, and they connect to me as someone who understands the specific troubles they are confronting," he says.
An hour earlier, in the Beersheba market, Ben-Gvir had his picture taken with an elderly vegetable seller who, like many others, promised to vote for him. When Ben-Gvir moved away, I asked the vegetable man if he really meant it.
"Yes, I'll vote for him, because he understands our problems here in Beersheba, and he'll take care of them."
Q: What unique problems do you have here?
"There is a lot of assimilation. They [referring to Bedouin] want to go out with our girls. Their crazy behavior on the roads. And the thefts."
Q: And why is Ben-Gvir the one who will take care of it?
"Because he is the only one who understands that it's terrible."
Q: And his public image doesn't put you off?
"Look, Ben-Gvir – he has the problem of extremism. He's very extreme. And the Palestinians are a lot better than the Bedouin. Here in the shuk [market], I'm friends with all the Palestinians. But he doesn't talk about the Palestinians any more. He knows that the Bedouin are a much bigger problem."
Q: And you believe him?
"I'm afraid he won't make it past the minimum threshold. The polls in the news don't always tell the truth.
Q: Who will you vote for?
"For Ben-Gvir. He'll help us with the Bedouin. He's the only one who understands their language."
Ben-Gvir, 44, was born in Mevasseret Zion, outside Jerusalem, to a Kurdish Jewish mother and an Iraqi father. He has one older brother, who has volunteered to be his personal driver during the campaign. He graduated from the secular Ort high school in Jerusalem, and only found religion at age 17. The IDF didn't draft him because he was already a leader of the Kahane youth movement.
"My mother took it hard. After she died, my wife found letters she had sent to then-Chief of Staff Ehud Barak. She told him that he, when she was a member of the IZL, had been arrested by the British for hanging posters – so why wouldn't the Jewish state draft her son?" he recalls.
Ben-Gvir lives in Givat Ha'avot neighborhood on the edge of Kiryat Arba, but his campaign office is in central Jerusalem and he claims that half of his prospective voters are secular, and many live inside the Green Line.
The day begins with a meeting with campaign volunteers in Dimona. From there, we went on to Netivot for a meeting with business owners, a quick falafel for campaign workers, and then a parade – with flags – through the city, a kind of celebration of democracy. Women in Volvos and bus drivers honk and blow kisses when they see him. Young people stop for selfies; Haredim extend elbows for a "corona shake."
Ben-Gvir doesn't miss anyone. "I need you," he tells everyone repeatedly, and they smile and promise to be there for him. Given that in the last election, his party won nearly 19,000 votes, he has something to prove from the No. 3 slot on the united Religious Zionist Party list.
'This time, the real thing is going to happen'
The only opposition to Ben-Gvir comes after an hour of marching. Two men playing backgammon on the sidewalk scold him about an incident that happened shortly before the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated: "You tore the emblem off Rabin's car" He walks up to them, shakes their hands, explains that he wasn't the one who did it and that it's important to get the facts right.
Q: People hold a grudge against you over the Rabin assassination. How did you avoid prison?
"Because I didn't tear the emblem off of Rabin's car. I said so in TV studios at the time. The one who pulled it off and admitted it to the police was some young guy who the media went easy on because his father was a supporter of Shimon Peres. Today, he's one of our activists, and so is his father."
Q: Are they sorry for what they did?
"Absolutely, yes. I just brought it to the media and said that if people could get to it, they could get to Rabin. By the way, what I originally said was that if I could get to Rabin, I'd yell at him. That's all. But they cut it off in editing. And 25 years have passed. I'm not there. They're still trying to delegitimize me."
Q: Possibly, but that's what's building you up.
"There's no doubt that the attacks from the Left don't hurt my base. From the start of the campaign, Yair Lapid has tweeted, if I'm not mistaken, more than 40 tweets about me. What I like best are the columns in Haaretz because they're hypocrisy at its best – the knights of free speech being outraged about 'How can you give him a platform?' By the way, 15 years ago, it would have worked. I used to be an outcast."
Q: You are consistently in the headlines.
"It wasn't always easy. I'll give you an example: In 2008 I started a campaign that said that if we free terrorists, Marwan Barghouti for example, then [Rabin assassin] Yigal Amir should be freed. I'm not in favor of releasing him, but I wanted people to be shocked at the possibility of freeing murderers. No one covered that campaign. I went to the Army Radio correspondent, and he told me candidly: I was ordered not to give you a platform.
"Then my young wife called what was then the program with the biggest audience. She told the host: 'I'm a student at the University of Haifa and you won't believe what I'm seeing here! Posters of a far-right activist!' They put her on the air, and she read out the poster that had supposedly been put up. I called the program to respond, and I said, 'There are no limits to your audacity – you put the left-winger on the air, and not me?' They said, 'There's no time, but we'll let you respond on the evening show.'"
Q: And that how you became popular? Because of the media's loathing? The Left is against you because you're a follower of Meir Kahane and the Right is against you because you lose votes for it.
"Everyone knows that I speak what is in my heart. I say what I think. A lot of the people of Israel connect to it. It's not Kiryat Arba and Yitzhar, it's Netivot and Ofakim and Beit Shean. I walk around Tel Aviv, not only in the south, and people admire and love me. There are also people who say, 'We don't agree with you, but we admire your honesty."
Ben-Gvir used to have a picture of Baruch Goldstein, a Kahane follower responsible for a massacre that killed 29 Muslim worshippers and wounded 125 at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994, on his wall.
Q: You took the picture down. Was that a violation of your principles?
"Ultimately, I didn't want my children to get the message that I was happy about the deaths of Arabs."
Q: What has changed? You were on the radical fringes of society.
"The profession. Studying law. I think that practicing law changed a few things in my life. I didn't turn into a Meretz member, but it changes you. When you're inside the system and learn the laws, it's something different."
Ben-Gvir says he might not have been admitted to the bar if it hadn't been for the late MK Dudu Rotem of YIsrael Beytenu, who was head of the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee when the Israel Bar Association wanted to prevent Ben-Gvir from taking the bar exam.
"I built a practice with my own two hands. I make more than MKs. People are willing to pay a lot, thank God. I told Ayala, my wife, know that we can make a few million in 10 or 15 years, but there's the Knesset. She said, 'Your dream and mine is for you to be in the Knesset to help the Jewish people.'"
Q: All these years, you've spoken out against the Likud. Where does the sudden support for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu come from?
"To form a right-wing government. If I spoke against Bibi, they'd slander me less."
Q: But no one in the Likud wants anything to do with you.
"Yes, they're the same people who want me to be the 61st vote that will let them stay on as ministers. But in the current political constellation, I think that if Netanyahu could, he would join Lapid or Gantz or whoever … in 2013, he opted for Lapid, and in 2015 he took Moshe Kahlon and the Likud was saying 'There's no way the justice system can be changed,' and a year ago they said, 'No change is possible because we have Gantz." But now I can be the missing piece of the pie. And maybe then there will be a true right-wing government here."
Q: As a lawyer, what is your opinion of the Netanyahu cases?
"Terrible, in my opinion. I feel uncomfortable about the trial and hope that his claims about selective enforcement are accepted. This is a blatant case of that. For years, I've been handling cases like these, but the Likud hasn't done anything about it … Sadly, Netanyahu is being persecuted and is paying the price for his failing to handle incorrect conduct by the legal system."
Q: So you don't trust Netanyahu.
"I trust Netanyahu only when I'm watching over him. He makes a lot of declarations that if he were to implement them, reality would be different."
Q: And thus far he hasn't fulfilled his promises?
"He has achievements. But when there are people in the south who can't open businesses because of a protection racket, women in south Tel Aviv who don't step outside into the jungle because they're afraid, in the north there's terrorism, and the attorney general is stronger than ever – things need to change."
Q: What should be changed?
"There need to be reforms to the legal system. The Supreme Court changes the laws passed by the legislature because they are the true sovereign. What's most important is to change the make-up of the Judges Selection Committee. I completely understand the need for judges with a variety of opinions, and a lot of times I'm happy to appear before the left-wing ones about things that are not ideological, because they accept my clients' cases and everything is great. But most of the Supreme Court justices are on the other side."
Q: You waited until the last minute to file a petition to disqualify Labor candidate Ibtisam Mara'ana from the party list. Was that a gimmick?
"Heaven forbid, I'm not comparing, but they disqualified Dr. Michael Ben Ari, Bentzi Gopstein, Baruch Marzel, and her, they leave in? If someone from Otzma Yehudit would have said what Ibtisam said about Zichron Yaakov, but the opposite – that Umm al-Fahm should be destroyed, for example – no judge would have allowed him to stay a candidate for the Knesset, and what's more, a police officer would show up immediately to arrest him."
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Q: What do you think about Netanyahu taking steps toward the Arabs?
"I distinguish between the public and the leaders. If he manages to get votes in Nazareth, for example, great. But I won't cooperate with [Ra'am leader] Mansour Abbas. Before the meeting of the committee to disqualify candidates we collected material [on him] and his comments are no gentler than Heba Yazbek or Ahmad Tibi's. One time, he said 'terrorists,' then rushed to apologize and explain that he didn't accept the Jewish terminology and that people who murder Jewish babies were actually freedom fighters. There are things you don't do to win seats."
Q: Will your bloc with Bezalel Smotrich fall apart after the election?
"It's a technical bloc. We have our disagreements and our pitfalls. Each of us brings some added value. Bezalel brings the religious Zionists – the mainstream, and I think that religious Zionism isn't just the kippa-wearers or the settlers, but anyone who identified with the values of the Land of the people and the Torah. It's also the people who maintain tradition, say Kiddush Friday night and watch soccer on Saturday morning. Religious Zionism is broader. If we can make connections in every direction, we'll profit hugely."
