Whenever Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, is asked about his position on the LGBTQ community he says," they're my brothers." The response is usually accompanied by a sensitive expression as if to suggest it was ludicrous that any other thought would even cross his mind.
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That is usually the extent of the debate, which fails to answer – or even address – one simple question: if these are indeed your brothers and you embrace them wholeheartedly, how will you vote on gay rights?
In most cases, any attempt by Ben-Gvir to use press interviews to edge closer to mainstream public opinion is something of a bear hug. The interviewer is always happily surprised – like everyone else – to learn that the hardline Ben-Gvir holds such liberal views, but as soon as he finished the sentence, his true colors come to light.
"I think it's absolutely awful that people hold a march in their underwear," he told Channel 13 last week when asked about the various pride parades taking place nationwide.
"They're my brothers" is the soft version of Ben-Gvir. No more belligerent rhetoric like he uttered ahead of the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin or professing that Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 committed the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, is his "hero." The 2022 model of Itamar Ben-Gvir is tolerant and accepting.
The disciple of Kach founder Meir Kahane is presenting a fake "unity" platform – one that he has crafted together before Yamina leader Naftali Bennett did (and successfully enough to form a government).
This is an example of how radical forces – on the Right and the Left – are trying to blur the fundamental difference between some of the sectors in Israeli society to access the heart of mainstream Israel. As the saying goes, "We agree on 80% of things."
Itamar Ben-Gvir is a savvy politician. He knows that his political-security views have become a consensus, but his conservative-religious views keep potential voters away.
He, therefore, turns to the liberal voter who is frustrated by the security situation, and offers something said voter can live with. When Otzma Yehudit and the Religious Zionist Party it joined wins a double-digit number of Knesset seats and when he enters the government as a senior minister, this alleged embrace will disappear, any acceptance will be forgotten, and gay rights will be sidelined.
Credit where credit is due, Ben-Gvir is not the same youth he was at 15, as he likes to say. But courting the LGBT community's votes one must convince voters that elected officials accept and respect the gay community – not despise it as was the case in the past.
Let's be honest though. Otzma Yehudit's leader won't be promoting any gay rights, no matter how much he promises to "love and embrace" it.
Make no mistake – Ben-Gvir has the right to be elected and to sit on the government – and even to realize some of his extremist agendas. That is the very core of the democratic game. But there are not many buyers for Ben-Gvir's ideology, so he is trying to win power at the expense of voters who no longer believe in anyone else in politics - those who every other day would negate his positions without giving it a second thought but in these difficult times find in him answers to some of the problems they see in the country.
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