Seeking a portfolio of the Ministry of Justice or Homeland Security
Ben Gvir, the "extremist right-winger", played a decisive role in the Israeli elections
The majority of Ben Ghafir's supporters are young people.
AFP
Netanyahu seeks alliance with Ben Gvir and give him a ministerial portfolio.
AFP
picture
Opinions in Israel are conflicting about the far-right leader Itamar Ben Gvir, who was once considered a pariah in the Israeli political arena, but may today play a decisive role in the country's upcoming elections.
Ben Gvir, 46, is seen by many as a lawmaker obsessed with igniting tensions, believing his policies threaten to set the country on fire.
In his luxury apartment in Tel Aviv, the lawyer, in his round glasses and white hood, told AFP: "I have changed. When I said 20 years ago that I wanted to expel all Arabs, I don't think so anymore, but I will not apologize."
Ben Gvir, elected to parliament in April 2021, heads the Jewish Power party, and has spent years campaigning for the far-right.
His program supports Israel's annexation of the occupied West Bank, home to 2.8 million Palestinians, and the transfer of some of the country's Arab-Israeli population.
In his youth, Ben Gvir was charged with more than 50 indictments of inciting violence or hate speech.
He boasts that he got rid of 46 charges, was studying law to learn how to defend himself, and for years the Bar Association rejected his application because of his criminal record.
Today he is one of the most prominent figures in Israeli politics. He is a father of six and lives in the Kiryat Arba settlement in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron.
Save the country
Just weeks before the November 1 Knesset elections, Ben Gvir brandished a gun in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, amid confrontations between Palestinian residents on one side and Israeli forces and his supporters on the other.
The next day, Ben Ghafir posted a photo of himself standing next to two of his children with toy guns, and wrote on Twitter: "After the riots, I teach children how to deal with terrorists."
Ben Gvir frequently goes to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Old Jerusalem, whose courtyards regularly witness confrontations between the Israeli police and Palestinians, and tension between Muslims and Jews increases with each visit to Ben Gvir.
"I am here to save the country," Ben Gvir says. "I am at war with the jihadists, and those who want to attack the country."
As a lawyer, Ben Gvir defended clients such as settlers accused of violence, including those involved in the 2015 burning of the home of the Palestinian Dawabsha family in the West Bank, which killed a baby and his parents.
There is no such thing as a Palestinian people for Ben Gvir, who speaks of an "existential crisis for the survival of the Jewish people."
His rhetoric is gaining supporters all over the country, while the proportion of young people among his supporters is increasing.
It is currently allied with another far-rightist, Bezalel Smotrich, and polls expect the duo to win 13 seats in the upcoming elections, nearly double their current seven.
They are likely to form, if true, the third largest coalition in parliament, which could put Ben Gvir in an influential position in any government coalition.
Right-wing opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu could benefit from the support of the "Jewish Power" and in return offer Ben Gvir a ministerial position.
feeds fear
Yossi Klein Halevi, a researcher at the Shalom Hartmann Institute in Jerusalem, says that Ben Gvir will seek a portfolio in the Ministry of Justice or Internal Security.
His accession to such a position will make him "responsible for maintaining law and order, and for ensuring that unrest, tension and hatred remain in the streets," says Yossi Klein Halevi of the Shallow Hartmann Intitiate in Jerusalem.
However, Ben Gvir's political ambition made him temper some of his views. Instead of "Death to the Arabs," he chanted, "Death to the terrorists!"
Ben Gvir was born on the outskirts of Jerusalem to eastern parents, and is inspired by the ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Meir Kahane, the leader of the Kach movement, which sought to expel Arabs in Israel.
Kahane, who entered the Knesset in 1984, was barred from running again in 1988 due to the racism of his party.
Kahane, who was assassinated in New York in 1990, was the ideological inspiration for Baruch Goldstein, who murdered 29 Palestinian worshipers in Hebron in 1994.
Ben Gvir used to hang a picture of Goldstein in his home, but he removed it after he entered politics.
According to Klein Halevi, the far-right leader is "faking his political transformation."
"Pretending now that if he is not completely moderate, then at least he is a respectable fanatic, is a lie," says the researcher, who wrote a book about his attraction to Jewish extremism as a teenager.
"It is a demagogue that feeds on fear, frustration and anger," he says.
• He studied law to learn how to defend himself, and for years the Bar Association rejected his application to join it because of his criminal record.
• Ben Gvir frequently visits the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Old Jerusalem, whose courtyards regularly witness confrontations between the Israeli police and Palestinians, and tension increases with each visit to Ben Gvir.
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news