Ben Gvir plays by the rules and is staunchly Zionist. Branding him an extremist pariah blurs the danger from anti-Israel extremists. Op-ed.
Itamar Ben GvirFlash90
There’s no doubt that we may find ourselves needing to warn the public about dangerous personalities from the right and/or left, so it’s crucially important to reserve such warnings for these actual cases
Otherwise the public, after being subject to false warnings, will assume that the real ones are equally fake.
This is the case with Itamar Ben-Gvir, the MK who a recent poll can get 7 Knesset seats if the party he heads rubs alone and who is painted, by both leftist and centrist media and Knesset candidates, as the epitome of extremism with absolutely no proof of those claims. .
Many of the same people who cite Ben Gvir’s behaviour as teenager as grounds for rejecting him opt to ignore the histories of numerous senior Israeli leaders – including things they did well after being kids.
Ben-Gvir has been playing by the rules for decades. As an attorney he’s racked up an impressive series of court rulings against Israeli authorities who tried to come up with something against him and also seeking justice for his clients.
He came to the aid of and successfully defended hilltop youth who were wrongly accused, set up his office in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood to protect Jews living there legally from hostile Arab neighbors He made his way to the mixed cities over a year ago during the Arab riots against Israeli Jews living there and called for action.
While calling for harsher sentences for Arab terrorists, he carefully refrains from generalizations about all Arabs. In fact, to put Ben-Gvir’s opinions in context in real time, here is a recent example. During an appearance in the Machane Yehuda market, some of those present shouted “death to the Arabs” and Ben Gvir forcefully responded: “It is death to the TERRORISTS – not the Arabs. “
His rise in the polls shows that he seems to be answering a desire on the part of a significant number of voters on the right for more forthright and public defense of nationalist Zionist ideology.
Again there is the Goldstein photo which Ben-Gvir used to have in his home (not as praise for the massacre but for Goldstein’s help as a physician) but the fact that Ben-Gvir removed the photo to placate critics bears witness to Ben-Gvir’s willingness to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Dr. Aaron Lerner heads IMRA, Independent Media Review and Analysis, which has since 1992 provided news and analysis on the Middle East with a focus on Arab-Israeli relations
Ben-Gvir is a very intriguing statesman who has been subjected to harsh penalties over the years and it does seem that their is a fear of his potential success, should he ever be granted an even field upon which to compete. I am quite impressed with his use of the office he holds to support the policies he champions, even in the Opposition. He takes risks, and he suffers blows that most, likely all, MKs would never contemplate approaching. I am very impressed with him, and hope to see him continue to defeat those who seem so wrapped in terror of his potential success that they must place roadblock after roadblock in his way while charging him as a both an agent provocateur and a radical extremist.