Itamar Ben-Gvir

Based on Wikipedia: Itamar Ben-Gvir

In 1995, a teenage activist appeared on Israeli television holding a Cadillac hood ornament. It had been stolen from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's car. The young man looked into the camera and declared: "We got to his car, and we'll get to him too."

Several weeks later, Rabin was dead—assassinated by a right-wing extremist.

The teenager with the hood ornament was Itamar Ben-Gvir. Three decades later, he would become one of the most powerful figures in Israeli politics, serving as Minister of National Security with authority over the country's police forces. His journey from radical youth activist to cabinet minister tells us something profound about how political movements once considered beyond the pale can eventually capture the machinery of the state.

The Making of a Kahanist

Ben-Gvir was born in 1976 in Mevaseret Zion, a small town just outside Jerusalem. His family background contains an interesting contradiction that would shape his political trajectory. His father, Zadok, came from Iraqi Kurdish roots and worked at a gasoline company while dabbling in writing. His mother, Shoshana, was a Kurdish Jewish immigrant from Iraq who had been active in the Irgun—a Zionist paramilitary organization—as a teenager. She was arrested by British authorities at age fourteen.

Despite this militant family history, the household itself was secular and politically moderate.

So what happened? The First Intifada happened.

The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation that erupted in 1987 and continued until 1993. It was characterized by mass protests, strikes, boycotts, and stone-throwing confrontations with Israeli forces. For a teenager coming of age during this period, the daily images of conflict and violence created a crucible of radicalization.

Ben-Gvir first joined a youth movement affiliated with Moledet, a political party that openly advocated for the expulsion of Arabs from Israel—a position known as "transfer" in Israeli political discourse. But Moledet wasn't extreme enough for him. He soon gravitated to something far more radical: the youth movement of Kach and Kahane Chai.

Understanding Kahanism

To understand Ben-Gvir, you must understand Meir Kahane.

Rabbi Meir Kahane was an American-born Orthodox rabbi who founded the Jewish Defense League in the United States before immigrating to Israel and creating Kach, a political party built on a simple and brutal premise: Jews and Arabs cannot coexist, and Arabs must be expelled from the Land of Israel.

Kahane was elected to the Knesset—the Israeli parliament—in 1984, but his ideas were so extreme that Israel subsequently changed its election laws specifically to bar parties that incite racism. Kach was banned from participating in elections. After Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990, his followers formed Kahane Chai (meaning "Kahane Lives"), which continued promoting his ideology.

Both organizations were eventually designated as terrorist groups by the Israeli government itself—a remarkable distinction, given that this was the Israeli government labeling an Israeli Jewish organization as terrorist.

This was the movement that captured the teenage Ben-Gvir's imagination. He became the youth coordinator for Kach, claiming he was first detained by authorities at age fourteen. When he turned eighteen—the age when Israeli citizens are normally conscripted into the Israel Defense Forces—the military exempted him from service. His political views were considered too extreme even for an army that had seen its share of ideological diversity.

A Career Built on Confrontation

What followed was decades of provocations, arrests, and legal battles.

In a 2015 interview, Ben-Gvir claimed to have been indicted fifty-three times. Most charges were eventually thrown out of court. But not all of them. In 2007, he was convicted of incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization. The incident that led to this conviction is revealing: following a bombing in Jerusalem, Ben-Gvir had chanted "Death to Arabs" and held signs reading "Expel the Arab enemy" and "Rabbi Kahane was right: The Arab MKs are a fifth column."

A fifth column, for those unfamiliar with the term, refers to a group within a country that secretly works to undermine it from within—enemy agents hiding in plain sight. By calling Arab members of the Knesset a fifth column, Ben-Gvir was essentially accusing elected representatives of being traitors who should be expelled.

He accumulated at least eight criminal convictions over the years.

Interestingly, his repeated appearances in court led him to study law. Several judges, perhaps struck by his courtroom manner when representing himself, suggested he formalize his legal education. He enrolled at Ono Academic College, but when he finished his studies, the Israel Bar Association blocked him from taking the bar exam due to his criminal record.

Ben-Gvir claimed this was politically motivated. After a series of appeals and the settlement of three pending criminal cases—all of which ended in acquittal—he was finally allowed to take the exam. He passed.

The Go-To Lawyer for Jewish Extremists

As a licensed attorney, Ben-Gvir carved out a particular niche: defending Jews accused of terrorism and hate crimes against Arabs.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described him as the "go-to man" for Jewish extremists facing legal trouble, noting that his client list "reads like a 'Who's Who' of suspects in Jewish terror cases and hate crimes in Israel."

His most notorious case involved defending two teenagers charged in the 2015 Duma arson attack. In this incident, Israeli settlers firebombed the home of a Palestinian family in the West Bank village of Duma, killing three people: eighteen-month-old Ali Dawabsheh, his father Saad, and his mother Riham. Only four-year-old Ahmad survived, with severe burns covering much of his body.

Ben-Gvir didn't just defend the perpetrators in court. He was photographed attending what became known as the "wedding of hate"—the wedding celebration of a couple related to the attackers. At this event, guests waved rifles, guns, and firebombs. Video footage showed attendees stabbing a photograph of the murdered toddler.

He also represented Lehava, an organization that opposes Jewish intermarriage with non-Jews and whose name is a Hebrew acronym meaning "Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land." The group is known for harassing Jewish-Arab couples and protesting at weddings between Jews and non-Jews.

From the Margins to the Mainstream

For years, Ben-Gvir and his Kahanist ideology remained on the extreme fringes of Israeli politics. His party, Otzma Yehudit (meaning "Jewish Power"), failed to cross the electoral threshold needed to enter the Knesset in multiple elections.

What changed?

Benjamin Netanyahu.

In the run-up to the 2022 Israeli legislative election, Netanyahu—desperate to assemble a coalition that would return him to power and potentially shield him from ongoing corruption prosecutions—publicly urged Otzma Yehudit to run on a joint list with the Religious Zionist Party. He posted a video address warning that if the parties ran independently, they might fall below the 3.25% electoral threshold and waste right-wing votes.

The gambit worked spectacularly. The combined list received the third-most votes in the election, winning fourteen seats out of 120 in the Knesset. Ben-Gvir and his party entered government.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog was caught on a hot microphone saying that "the entire world was worried" about Ben-Gvir becoming a minister.

The worry was not unfounded. Ben-Gvir was given control of the newly created National Security Ministry, which oversees the Israeli police and Border Police in the West Bank. A man who had been exempted from military service due to his extremist views, who had been convicted of supporting a terrorist organization, now commanded law enforcement forces.

A Portrait in the Living Room

One detail about Ben-Gvir became emblematic of his politics: for years, he kept a portrait in his living room of Baruch Goldstein.

If the name doesn't ring a bell, here's what Goldstein did. On February 25, 1994, during the Jewish holiday of Purim, Goldstein—an American-born Israeli physician and settler—walked into the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims. He opened fire on Palestinian Muslim worshippers during their morning prayers, killing twenty-nine people and wounding 125 others before being beaten to death by survivors.

It remains one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Israeli history, perpetrated by an Israeli Jew against Palestinian Muslims.

Goldstein was a follower of Meir Kahane and a member of Kach. His grave in Kiryat Arba became a pilgrimage site for Kahanist followers, who erected a shrine declaring him a martyr who "gave his life for the people of Israel, its Torah and land."

This was the man whose portrait Ben-Gvir displayed in his home. He only removed it in 2020 when he hoped to run on a unified right-wing list headed by Naftali Bennett—a mainstream politician who apparently drew the line at coalition partners who openly venerated mass murderers.

The Temple Mount Provocations

Ben-Gvir has repeatedly inserted himself into one of the world's most sensitive religious flashpoints: the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif.

This elevated platform in Jerusalem's Old City contains the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. For Jews, it is the location of the ancient Jewish temples and the holiest site in Judaism. The compound is administered by the Islamic Waqf (a religious endowment authority), though Israel controls access.

A delicate status quo has prevailed for decades: Jews may visit but traditionally have not prayed there, and Israeli officials have generally avoided the site to prevent inflaming tensions. Ben-Gvir has made a point of violating these norms.

On January 3, 2023—just days after taking office as national security minister—he visited the Temple Mount. The move prompted international condemnation from the United States, the European Union, and Arab countries including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

For Ben-Gvir, provoking this response was likely the point.

Sheikh Jarrah and the Cycle of Violence

In May 2021, tensions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah were escalating. Palestinian families there have faced potential eviction by Israeli settlers for years in a grinding legal battle over property rights. The neighborhood became a focal point of Palestinian resistance and Israeli nationalist assertion.

Into this powder keg walked Ben-Gvir, who set up a makeshift outdoor office in the neighborhood as a show of solidarity with Jewish settlers.

Israel's Police Commissioner, Kobi Shabtai, directly blamed Ben-Gvir for the violent clashes that followed. The provocation worked. Netanyahu eventually convinced Ben-Gvir to dismantle his office and leave—but only after agreeing to increase police presence in the neighborhood during Ramadan.

A year later, during another round of violence in Sheikh Jarrah, Ben-Gvir was filmed brandishing a gun during clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents. He yelled at police to shoot at Palestinians throwing stones and shouted at the locals: "We're the landlords here, remember that, I am your landlord."

The morning after his 2022 election victory, he repeated this message in a tweet.

Minister of National Security

As minister, Ben-Gvir has pursued policies that align with his long-held positions.

He worked to loosen Israel's firearm-ownership regulations. By August 2025, his office announced that these reforms had resulted in 230,000 new firearm licenses being issued. He has also pushed for the creation of a National Guard—a move that critics fear would create a force more aligned with his political agenda than the existing police.

His response to allegations of abuse at detention facilities has been revealing. In July 2024, Israeli military police visited the Sde Teiman detention camp to arrest nine soldiers suspected of aggravated abuse and forcible sodomy of a Palestinian prisoner. Ben-Gvir condemned the prosecution of the soldiers as "shameful," calling for "the military authorities to back the fighters... Soldiers need to have our full support."

Various reports indicate that since the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, mistreatment has become a systemic feature of Israel's detention of Palestinian prisoners—a system that falls under Ben-Gvir's authority.

International Pariah

The international community has not looked kindly on Ben-Gvir's rise.

In January 2024, after the International Court of Justice issued a ruling against Israel in a case brought by South Africa, Ben-Gvir accused the court of antisemitism—a response that illustrated his approach to any criticism of Israeli policy.

By June 2025, the governments of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway announced they would impose travel bans and freeze Ben-Gvir's assets, accusing him of inciting settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. Slovenia and the Netherlands followed with similar sanctions in July. Spain joined in September.

In November 2025, Turkey went further: its Chief Public Prosecutor charged Ben-Gvir and thirty-six other Israeli officials with genocide and crimes against humanity in Gaza, issuing an arrest warrant.

Ben-Gvir has become a minister who cannot travel to much of the Western world without risking arrest.

The Ceasefire Crisis

Ben-Gvir's ideological commitments occasionally put him at odds with even his allies.

In January 2025, Israel reached a three-phase ceasefire agreement in Gaza. Ben-Gvir held a press conference announcing he would resign as minister and withdraw his party from the coalition if the government accepted the deal.

The government accepted anyway. Ben-Gvir resigned on January 19, 2025.

His principled stand lasted two months.

In March 2025, after Israel resumed airstrikes in Gaza, Ben-Gvir announced his party would return to the government. The cabinet approved his reappointment, and the Knesset confirmed it the following day.

A Symptom, Not a Cause

There's a temptation to view Ben-Gvir as an aberration—a radical who slipped through the cracks of Israeli democracy through some fluke of coalition politics. This view is comforting but misleading.

Ben-Gvir's rise reflects real shifts in Israeli society. The Kahanist ideology that was once considered so extreme that it was literally outlawed has gradually been normalized. A political party founded by followers of a designated terrorist organization is now part of the governing coalition. A man with multiple terrorism-related convictions controls the police.

The trajectory from teenage hood-ornament thief to national security minister spans three decades of Israeli political history. In that time, positions that were once beyond the pale—expelling Arab citizens, celebrating mass murderers, using overwhelming force against Palestinian protests—have moved from the margins to the mainstream.

Whether this represents the exposure of beliefs that were always present beneath the surface of Israeli politics, or a genuine radicalization of Israeli society, or simply the logical endpoint of decades of occupation is a question historians will debate for generations.

What is clear is that Itamar Ben-Gvir is no longer an outsider. He is, as he proclaimed to the Palestinians of Sheikh Jarrah while brandishing his gun, "the landlord."