Jerusalem: Israel’s far-right national security minister has a long history as a provocateur, well before the video he promoted of himself taunting detained activists from the Gaza flotilla.
His tactics drew a backlash this week, as foreign leaders – and even coalition partner Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – condemned his on-camera treatment of some 430 detainees from the Global Sumud Flotilla.
A leading Israeli commentator, meanwhile, condemned Ben-Gvir not for his actions towards the activists but for the damage inflicted on Israel’s image, describing him as a “reputational arsonist”.
Posting on X, Channel 12 political correspondent Amit Segal – who is reportedly close to Netanyahu – said Ben-Gvir’s crime was not abusing the prisoners, who were “determined enemies”, but dragging “the world’s hostile glare right back onto Israel”.
Ben-Gvir is already sanctioned by Australia and a string of other countries for inciting violence against Palestinians, while on Thursday, Poland’s foreign minister requested that the Interior Ministry ban him from entering the country, a spokesperson said on Thursday.
An outlaw youth
Denied entry into the military as a teenager because of his extreme views, the 50-year-old Ben-Gvir nevertheless rose to become one of the most powerful people in the country after operating for decades within its far-right fringes.
He was born in 1976 in a small town 10 kilometres west of Jerusalem. His father was from Iraqi Kurdistan forebears, while his mother was a Kurdish Jewish migrant also from Iraq who was involved with the Jewish militant group Irgun in her youth.
Ben-Gvir has been convicted eight times for offences that include racism and supporting a terrorist organisation.
The army banned him from compulsory military service when he was a teenager, deeming his views too extreme.
He gained notoriety in his youth as a follower of the late radical rabbi Meir Kahane and first became a national figure when he broke a hood ornament off then-prime minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car in 1995.
“We got to his car, and we’ll get to him too,” he said, just weeks before Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist opposed to his peace efforts with the Palestinians.
Two years later, Ben-Gvir took responsibility for orchestrating a campaign of protests, including death threats, that forced Irish singer Sinead O’Connor to cancel a concert for peace in Jerusalem.
Moving to the mainstream
The political rise of Ben-Gvir was the culmination of years of efforts by the media-savvy lawmaker to gain legitimacy. But it also reflected a rightward shift in the Israeli electorate that brought his religious, ultranationalist ideology into the mainstream and diminished hopes for Palestinian independence.
Ben-Gvir is trained as a lawyer and gained recognition as a successful defence attorney for extremist Jews accused of violence against Palestinians.
With a quick wit and cheerful demeanour, Ben-Gvir also became a popular fixture in the media, paving the way for a political career. He was first elected to parliament in 2021.
Ben-Gvir has called for the deportation of his political opponents. In an episode in 2022, he brandished a pistol and encouraged police to open fire on Palestinian stone-throwers in a tense Jerusalem neighbourhood.
In his cabinet post, Ben-Gvir oversaw the country’s police force. He used his influence to encourage Netanyahu to press ahead with the war in Gaza and recently boasted that he had blocked past efforts to reach a ceasefire.
As national security minister, he has encouraged police to take a tough line against anti-government protesters.
Controversial minister
Ben-Gvir, who lives in the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba in the West Bank, secured his cabinet post after the 2022 elections that put Netanyahu and his far-right partners, including Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, into power.
“Over the last year I’ve been on a mission to save Israel,” Ben-Gvir told reporters before that election. “Millions of citizens are waiting for a real right-wing government. The time has come to give them one.”
Ben-Gvir has been a magnet of controversy throughout his tenure – encouraging the mass distribution of handguns to Jewish citizens, backing Netanyahu’s contentious attempt to overhaul the country’s legal system and frequently lashing out at US leaders for perceived slights against Israel.
He oversees the nation’s police force, prison service and border police units operating in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
During the war in Gaza, which began after Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Ben-Gvir repeatedly advocated against the entry of humanitarian aid into the territory, even as experts warned of brewing famine.
In July 2025, he was one of two Israeli ministers sanctioned by Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway for allegedly “inciting extremist violence” against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Netherlands has banned Ben-Gvir from entering the country.
He recently celebrated in Israel’s parliament after the body approved the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis, a bill he spearheaded.
Cabinet resignation and return
Ben-Gvir temporarily resigned from Netanyahu’s cabinet last year to express his disapproval of the Gaza ceasefire deal.
That ceasefire ran from January 19 to March 1. Ben-Gvir’s resignation did not stop the ceasefire, but it did weaken Netanyahu’s governing coalition.
Ben-Gvir rejoined the cabinet when Israel ended the ceasefire and returned to active combat in Gaza in March 2025. He has remained in Netanyahu’s cabinet through the current Gaza ceasefire.
Asked by this masthead why the government had not censured Ben-Gvir before this week’s video, Israel’s ambassador to Australia, Hillel Newman, said: “The fact that a person is right-wing is not a reason to prohibit him from running for elections or being a minister”.
“Once the Supreme Court allows him to run for elections, it’s not the place of any politician to prohibit his running for elections or being part of a coalition in the future,” Newman told journalists at Parliament House in Canberra.
AP, with Nick Newling
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