Ben-Gvir had been long accused of being a provocateur, having led several contentious marches to the Temple Mount as an activist and member of Knesset, through Jerusalem's Old City Muslim Quarter, and set up an office in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood which witnessed several evictions of Palestinians.[14] On 3 January 2023, he visited the Temple Mount where the al-Aqsa Mosque is located, spurring an international wave of criticism that labelled his visit purposely provocative.[14] As a lawyer, he is known for defending Jews accused of terrorism on trial in Israel.[15] In 2024, he was the subject of a foiled assassination plot by seven Arab citizens of Israel and four Palestinians from the West Bank.[16]
Early life
Itamar Ben-Gvir was born in Mevaseret Zion. His father was born in Jerusalem to Iraqi Jewish immigrants. He worked at a gasoline company and dabbled in writing. His mother was a Kurdish Jewish immigrant who had been active in the Irgun as a teenager and was a homemaker. His family was secular, but as a teenager, he adopted religious and radical right-wing views during the First Intifada. He first joined a right-wing youth movement affiliated with Moledet, a party which advocated transferring Arabs out of Israel, and then joined the youth movement of the even more radical Kach and Kahane Chai party, which was eventually designated as a terrorist organization and outlawed by the Israeli government.[17][18] He became youth coordinator of Kach, and claimed that he was detained at the age of 14. When he came of age for conscription into the Israel Defense Forces at 18, he was exempted from service by the IDF due to his extreme-right political background.[19][15]
Ben-Gvir continued to be associated with the Kahanist movement;[20] Otzma Yehudit is said to be Kach's ideological successor.[21] However, when forming the Otzma Yehudit party, he claimed that it would not be a Kach, Kahane Chai or splinter group.[22] He carried out a series of far-right activities that have resulted in dozens of indictments. In a November 2015 interview, he claimed to have been indicted 53 times.[23] In most cases, the charges were thrown out of court.[15] In 2007, however, he was convicted for incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization.[13][24]
In the 1990s, he was active in protests against the Oslo Accords. In 1995, Ben-Gvir came to public attention for the first time, when he appeared on television brandishing a Cadillac hood ornament that had been stolen from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's car, and declared: "We got to his car, and we'll get to him too." Several weeks later, Rabin was assassinated by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir.[15][25]
Legal career
Ben-Gvir sometimes represented himself during his many indictments, and at the suggestion of several judges, he decided to study law. Ben-Gvir studied law at the Ono Academic College.[15] At the end of his studies, the Israel Bar Association blocked him from taking the bar exam on grounds of his criminal record. Ben-Gvir claimed the decision was politically motivated. After a series of appeals, this decision was overturned, but it was ruled that Ben-Gvir would first have to settle three criminal cases in which he was charged at the time. After being acquitted in all three cases on charges including holding an illegal gathering and disturbing a civil servant, Ben-Gvir was allowed to take the exam. He passed the written and oral examinations, and was granted a license to practice law.[26][27]
As a lawyer, Ben-Gvir has represented a series of far-right Jewish activists suspected of terrorism and hate crimes. Notable clients include Benzi Gopstein and two teenagers charged in the Duma arson attack. Haaretz described Ben-Gvir as the "go-to man" for Jewish extremists facing legal trouble, and reported that his client list "reads like a 'Who's Who' of suspects in Jewish terror cases and hate crimes in Israel".[15] Ben-Gvir is also the lawyer for Lehava, a far-right Israeli anti-assimilation organization which is active in opposing Jewish intermarriage with non-Jews,[28][29] and has sued the waqf.[30][31][32]
Ben-Gvir says that his work as a lawyer for far-right Jewish activists is motivated by a desire to help them, and not for money.[15]
Political career
Ben-Gvir was the parliamentary assistant in the 18th Knesset for Michael Ben-Ari.[22] In the 2013 Israeli legislative election, he was placed 5th on the Otzma Leyisrael list, but failed to enter Knesset since the party failed to pass the election threshold.[33] On 23 July 2017, he was part of the leadership of a protest that included dozens of people outside of the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem. The protest was held by both Lehava and Otzma Yehudit.[34]
Ben-Gvir had planned to run for a seat in the Knesset in the September 2019 Israeli legislative election in the first slot of a combined Noam/Otzma Yehudit electoral list,[35] though the two parties split over Otzma's inclusion of a secular candidate on the combined list (which Noam disagreed with).[36] Ben-Gvir was in the third slot[37] of a joint list that includes Otzma Yehudit, Noam and the Religious Zionist Party that ran in the 2021 Israeli legislative election.[38] He was elected to the Knesset as the alliance won six seats.[39]
In May 2021, he was reported to be frequenting the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, in a show of solidarity with Jewish settlers who live there.[40]
In the 2022 Israeli legislative election, Otzma Yehudit again ran as part of a combined list with the Religious Zionist Party. This combined list received the 3rd most votes in the 25th Knesset, receiving a total of 14 seats out of 120.[41][42] Ben-Gvir and his party entered a Netanyahu-led government. It was reported in late November 2022 that Ben-Gvir would head the newly created National Security Ministry, whose duties would include overseeing the Israel Border Police in the West Bank.[43]
In January 2022, his level of security was increased. Due to frequent death threats, Ben-Gvir is accompanied by multiple security guards in public, and extra security measures are taken to ensure his safety.[44]
In October 2021, Ben-Gvir and Joint List leader Ayman Odeh had a physical confrontation during a visit to the Kaplan Medical Center to see Miqdad Qawasmeh, a Hamas operative who had been on a hunger strike for over three months of his administrative detention. Ben-Gvir was against Qawasmeh being treated in an Israeli hospital, and stated that he had visited to check the detainee's conditions, as well as to "see up close this miracle that a person remains alive despite not eating for several months". As Ben-Gvir attempted to enter Qawasmeh's room, he accused Odeh of being a terrorist for supporting extremists like Qawasmeh. Odeh then struck first, pushing Ben-Gvir, and the pair began to scuffle before being separated by bystanders.[50] Ben-Gvir later filed a complaint against Odeh, claiming that he had "committed a serious criminal act".[51]
In December 2021, Ben-Gvir was investigated after a video surfaced of him pulling a handgun on Arab security guards during a parking dispute in the underground garage of the Expo Tel Aviv conference center. The guards asked Ben-Gvir to move his vehicle as he was parked in a prohibited space. He then drew a pistol and brandished it at the guards.[52] Both parties taunted each other, and Ben-Gvir claimed that he felt his life threatened. The guards were unarmed.[53] He was criticized by lawmakers across the aisle, and the incident was investigated.[54]
On October 13, 2022, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, Ben-Gvir took part in the clashes between Israeli Jewish settlers and the local Palestinian residents, brandishing a gun, telling the police to shoot at Palestinians throwing stones at the scene, and yelling at them that "We're the landlords here, remember that, I am your landlord."[55] This was a message that was later repeated by him in a tweet on the morning after the 2022 election in his victory tweet.[56]
On 3 January 2023, Ben-Gvir, as national security minister, visited the Temple Mount, which prompted a wave of international criticism from the United States, European Union, and Arab countries including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who termed his visit as provocative and called on Israel to respect the status quo of holy sites.[14] Ben-Gvir had been long accused of being a provocateur, having previously led several visits to the Temple Mount as activist and member of Knesset, contentious marches through Jerusalem's Old City Muslim Quarter, and set up an office in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood which witnessed Israeli-Palestinian tensions.[14] On 8 January, he ordered Israeli police to remove Palestinian flags being flown in public, stating the flags symbolized terrorism.[57]
In August 2023 he stated "My right, and my wife's and my children's right, to get around on the roads in Judea and Samaria is more important than the right to movement for Arabs".[58] These comments were condemned by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the US State Department as racist. The PA condemned "the racist and heinous remarks by Israel's fascist minister Itamar Ben Gvir, which only confirms Israel's apartheid regime of Jewish supremacy and racial terror against the Palestinian people".[59]
In October 2023, following the arrest of five ultra-Orthodox Heredi Jews for spitting at Christians and outside churches, Ben-Gvir said it was "not a criminal case" following arrests.[60] He said he thought it should be addressed "through instruction and education", rather than justifying arrest.[61] Prior to entering politics, he defended Jews spitting at Christians as "an ancient Jewish custom".[61] After the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, Ben-Gvir said that "Israel is experiencing one of the most difficult events in its history. This is not the time for questions, tests and investigations."[62]
In November 2023 he declared that "when they say that Hamas needs to be eliminated, it also means those who sing, those who support and those who distribute candy, all of these are terrorists."[63][64] On 1 January 2024, Ben-Gvir said that the war with Hamas presented an "opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza."[65] He has stated that "We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing".[66] On the day that a number of European countries recognised a Palestinian state, Ben-Gvir entered the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and said "We will not allow any surrender that would even include a declaration of a Palestinian state" and that the mosque site belongs "only to the State of Israel".[67]
Ben-Gvir sued his father's caregiver, a foreign worker from Sri Lanka, for 100,000 NIS after he asked for severance pay from him and his brother, after Ben-Gvir's father died. Ben-Gvir's claim was that his father died because the worker went on a vacation. The court ruled that Ben-Gvir and his brother would pay the foreign worker around 100,000 NIS as their father's heirs.[69]
On 26 April 2024, Ben-Gvir sustained minor injuries in a car accident in Ramla.[70]