Thirty years ago, during the political storm following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1995, a young Israeli extremist appeared on national television waving the Cadillac emblem ripped from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car, declaring:
“If we got to this, we can get to Rabin.”
Weeks later, Rabin was assassinated by a far-right law student, Yigal Amir, at a Tel Aviv rally. Among the loudest voices defending the assassin was a teenage activist named Itamar Ben Gvir.
Three decades on, that same young radical has become a central figure in the Israeli government. As the head of the “Jewish Power” (Otzma Yehudit) party, Ben Gvir has helped reshape Israel into an openly fascist, theocratic project. But how did he rise to such prominence? And what ideological forces shaped this dangerous figure?
Born in Hate: From Settler Extremism to Political Power
Born in 1976 in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevaseret Zion, Ben Gvir comes from a Mizrahi Jewish background. His father was of Iraqi descent, and his mother was Kurdish-Iraqi — a former member of the infamous Irgun (Etzel) militia, responsible for the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948.
His political awakening came amid Mizrahi protests against Ashkenazi dominance, but instead of embracing social justice, Ben Gvir was drawn to ultranationalism. At 14, he attacked the leftist Women in Black movement, soon joining the Kach movement founded by the American-born fascist Rabbi Meir Kahane.
Kach taught that Arabs must be expelled or annihilated, using Torah verses to justify ethnic cleansing. Ben Gvir and his mentor Noam Federman studied under Kahane and absorbed a messianic vision of a pure Jewish theocracy stretching “from the river to the sea.”
Idolising a Mass Murderer
Ben Gvir openly idolised Baruch Goldstein, the Kach member who massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers at Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994. He hung Goldstein’s photo on his wall, dressed as him for Purim, and proudly displayed the slogan:
“Blessed is the man who opens fire… My hero: Dr. Goldstein.”
His legal career was blocked due to his criminal record, which includes over 50 indictments and at least 10 convictions — including assaulting Israeli police officers and inciting hatred. Despite this, he continued to defend settler terrorists in court, including suspects in the 2015 Duma arson attack that killed a Palestinian baby and his parents.
Ben Gvir avoided military service and called the Pope’s visit to Jerusalem in 2000 a “Crusader invasion.”
From Fringe Extremist to Government Power
In 2004, Ben Gvir and other Kach followers founded the “Jewish National Front,” which later became Jewish Power. After several failed electoral attempts, he joined forces with Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, securing 14 seats in 2022 and entering Netanyahu’s government.
There, Ben Gvir extracted major concessions, including:
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- Control over internal security
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- Authority over policing in the West Bank
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- Influence over settlements and prisons
He pushed for laws to:
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- Loosen rules on opening fire
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- Impose the death penalty on Palestinian prisoners
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- Undermine the Supreme Court’s independence
His signature achievement was launching a “National Guard” under his direct command — a force critics fear will become a private militia targeting Palestinians and leftists.
Arming Settlers, Undermining the State
Ben Gvir has overseen an explosion in firearm licenses, issuing over 172,000 permits since October 2023. Many of these guns went to untrained settlers, contributing to rising violent crime — the opposite of his promises to “restore order.”
His plans also include:
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- Recruiting ultra-Orthodox Jews into the police and National Guard
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- Training a special military-police unit mirroring the extremist “Netsah Yehuda” battalion
Haaretz described this armed anarchy as proof of failure, noting that Ben Gvir essentially told citizens not to rely on police — but to arm themselves instead.
A Theocracy in the Making
Ben Gvir believes in a Torah-based Jewish state with no separation of religion and state. His worldview is rooted in the ultra-nationalist teachings of:
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- Ze’ev Jabotinsky, who famously declared that “a Jew outside Israel is like a man without a god”
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- Rabbi Abraham Kook, who called the Jewish soul “divine” and described Arabs as spiritually inferior
Ben Gvir doesn’t just want to dominate the Palestinians — he wants to reshape Israel itself into a theocratic settler empire.
His policies aim to:
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- Legalise outposts in the West Bank
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- Reverse the 2005 Gaza disengagement
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- Expel Palestinians to surrounding Arab countries
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- Dismantle secularism within Israel
He even celebrated Ariel Sharon’s coma after the Gaza withdrawal by throwing a barbecue, declaring:
“Let this be a message to all who dare touch the Land of Israel — it is stronger than us all.”
Ben Gvir’s War on Democracy and the State
Despite being part of the ruling coalition, Ben Gvir openly battles state institutions. On March 23, 2025, during a Cabinet meeting, he physically confronted Shin Bet head Ronen Bar, accusing him of “plotting a coup” and “undermining democracy.”
This is the same “democracy” Ben Gvir had earlier worked to dismantle, alongside Netanyahu — seeking to neutralise judicial independence and hand unchecked power to the executive.
Now, Ben Gvir is attacking the very security apparatus he once relied on — because it resists his fascist, messianic vision.
Final Thought: The Face of the New Israel
Ben Gvir is not an aberration — he is the logical product of a system that:
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- Founded itself on ethnic cleansing
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- Revered armed settler militias
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- Rejected accountability from day one
He is the political heir of Baruch Goldstein and Meir Kahane, just as he is the ideological partner of Bezalel Smotrich.
If Israel once tried to conceal its racism behind democracy, Ben Gvir has torn off the mask. He believes that Jews alone have the right to live, rule, and dominate — and that “others” exist only to be subdued or removed.
This is the Zionism of the future — and its face is one of violence, fanaticism, and apartheid.
