Itamar Ben-Gvir chose to attack US President Joe Biden on the pages of The Wall Street Journal. The position of the minister of national security and the head of the party called Otzma Yehudit towards the US president is not only interesting, but also representative – of the government in which he sits, not in the formal sense of "joint ministerial responsibility", but in the essential-public sense.
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Ben-Gvir has increasingly become the "face of the government." Time and again he takes responsibility for the showcase window of the "full right-wing government," not infrequently as the only show doll in the window.
Ben Gvir has not made any dramatic changes in his ways since being appointed minister, and perhaps this can be said to his credit. Perhaps this is the man who has run long distances in Israeli politics and wholeheartedly believes that in another three or four election campaigns there will be no government without him. But currently, it seems that after the events of October 7, he will not be a member of any government that is formed. He is not Tzachi Hanegbi or Yisrael Katz, who began their political careers with harsh confrontations on campus against Arab students and knew how to quickly move into the depth of the Israeli consensus. Ben-Gvir can't even put on a facade in that regard.
Ben-Gvir mainly talks. His working assumption is that this is enough to increase his power in the next Knesset, and he is probably right. The question is at what cost? What price will the state pay and what price will the right-wing camp pay? His words resonate not because they are considered "words of the wise", but because most of them cause damage – especially to the right-wing camp. Ben-Gvir is the hottest commodity on the Israeli Left, a mouth that does not stop giving gifts to the battered camp whose vision of two states for two peoples is drenched in regional blood, sweat, and tears.
Therefore, Ben-Gvir is one of the engines that arouse vitality and hope on the Israeli Left for the vision of the two states. From the Left's point of view, he is the optimal flammable material for fueling international motivation to push for the establishment of a Palestinian state. It is not difficult to explain why Palestinians need to be protected from Israeli policy as currently presented in the showcase window where the fiery Ben-Gvir is its presenter. And if salvation does not come from international pressure, Ben-Gvir's performances push more and more Israelis who define themselves as "right-wing" to vote for Yair Lapid or Benny Gantz. They are not convinced that the logic of the minister adds strength, security, or honor to Israel. On the contrary.
Ben Gvir's damage to the Israeli Right is multiplied sevenfold because of the faint sound of silence heard after his remarks. Government members surrounding him grumble, at best, and even this grumbling undergoes filtering by media advisors and electoral calculators. These days, there is no Jewish power (the literal meaning of Otzma Yehudit) to fully express what most government ministers think in their bellies in the face of his recurring performances. There are no statements of values. There is no polemic and no condemnation. Ben Gvir's words are like the hum of an invisible mosquito on the government floor in Jerusalem. Everyone hopes someone else will deal with the annoying buzz. Ben-Gvir is the only one who really says what he thinks, he knows Bibi won't do to him what Yitzhak Rabin did to Shulamit Aloni because of "her big mouth."
It seems that the right-wing camp may end up paying full price for the fizzy drink being served to the Israeli public in Ben-Gvir flavor and with Netanyahu and the ministers' bubbles of silence. If all this culminates with the doubling of Ben-Gvir's electoral power perhaps the right-wing camp will know how to digest this, but if it this results in determining the results of the next elections and lead to the end of right-wing dominance as it has been for the past forty years, the historical price will be heavy.
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