If Ben-Gvir doesn’t represent Israel, who does?

Detained Gaza-bound flotilla activists kneeling on a metal floor surrounded by containers, in a video released in late May 2026

Ahmad Tibi writes in Haaretz on 25 May 2026:

Following National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s shameful harassment of activists on the international flotilla that sought to break through the blockade of Gaza, the expected chain reaction ensued. That harassment included public humiliation and taunting of activists. It turned Israel’s pirate-like, violent takeover of the flotilla’s ships, already a violation of international law, into a horrific political circus. As a result, European countries summoned Israeli ambassadors and issued condemnations, while global media again portrayed Israel as an aggressive, violent and unrestrained country that was running wild.

Then, as always, the national system of denial kicked in. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to announce that “the way that Minister Ben Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists is not in line with Israel’s values and norms.” The remark has already become one of the most useful lies in Israeli politics. Ben-Gvir isn’t representative of Israel. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich isn’t. Minister May Golan isn’t. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi isn’t. The violent settlers aren’t. The “hilltop youth” aren’t. So, if they aren’t representative of this country, who is?

The truth is simple and also a lot more frightening. They are representative of this government. Smotrich and his horrific values, along with his ethnic supremacist views, currently represent a central portion of the Israeli government. And Ben-Gvir isn’t an aberration from the system either. Rather, he’s a natural product of it. Kahanism has long taken over the government, the Knesset, the national conversation and a considerable chunk of the media, which we can detect via policy, language, practice and legislation.

The truth is that since October 7, 2023, most Israelis have expressed varying degrees of Kahanism. Something deep in the public’s consciousness has shifted. Fear, revenge, a sense of victimhood and rage have become fertile ground for many in normalizing racism, dehumanization, Jewish supremacy and political violence. However, the moment that it comes to having Israeli society look itself in the mirror, there’s immediate denial. “That’s not us,” people reflexively say. “Those are the extremists. They’re not representative.”

But the mirror doesn’t lie. Behavior that was once considered beyond the pale and dangerous has become the norm. Things protesters once whispered on the sidelines of a racist demonstration is now said around the cabinet table and in the mainstream media. Reflecting on the works of Hannah Arendt, it seems that the problem doesn’t involve the fact that evil people exist but rather that ordinary people take the evil for granted. And that’s the real danger that Israel is facing today – not only the existence of extremists but the fact that extremism has ceased to be shocking.

“Every age has its own fascism,” Primo Levi warned. Today, Israel’s fascism isn’t expressed by people in black shirts but through legislation, in television studios, in cabinet ministers’ social media posts and through the public humiliation of human beings.

The reaction of the Israeli opposition only reveals the depths of the problem. Naftali Bennett responded to Ben-Gvir’s horrific actions and statements by proposing the establishment of a “strong and effective” public diplomacy agency. Really? That’s the problem? Public diplomacy (“hasbara” in Hebrew)? The world isn’t shocked because they didn’t manage to explain the scenes better. The world is shocked because it understands all too well what it sees.

You can’t expect to wipe out racism through public relations campaigns. When Israeli politicians repeatedly speak about hasbara, they’re really saying that the problem isn’t the acts themselves but rather how the world perceives them. That attitude demonstrates the depths of the illness.

Although this phenomenon involves a widespread affliction, there’s one person at the top. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu represents Israel more than anyone else. He’s not a victim of these developments but rather their architect. He’s the man who legitimized Kahanism, whitewashing it, bringing it into the cabinet and turning it into the political center of power in Israel. In the view of a large portion of the world, Netanyahu is identified with an unprecedented policy of annihilation and destruction, collective punishment and displacement of a civilian population.

The pictures of tens of thousands of dead children, neighborhoods that have been erased, hunger, refugees and total destruction have become inseparable from how the world perceives Israel today. When his cabinet ministers openly speak about “voluntary emigration,” about erasing cities and the deprivation of food, the world doesn’t view that as a slip of the tongue but rather as policy.

Netanyahu may at times try to disassociate himself from the extremists in his midst, but as a practical matter, he’s the one who has given them power, backing and legitimization. So it’s the Israeli government and the person at his helm that are the face of the State of Israel. Netanyahu has been playing with fire for years, thinking that he could control it. He has incited against Arabs when he needed votes and against leftists when he needed to survive politically.

He has incited against the judicial system, dismantling every system of checks and balances and trampled every public norm. Now he no longer has control of the monster that he cultivated. In many respects, he has become its prisoner.

So, his attempt to portray Ben-Gvir as someone who doesn’t represent “Israel’s values” isn’t just hypocrisy but an admission to the fact that the world identifies Israel with its government and its violence and abuse and humiliation and racism. The world no longer believes the artificial separation between them and Israel. A democratically elected government represents a country’s image.

Since Netanyahu is at the root of this political and moral wrong, which has led Israel to a place where Kahanism isn’t an aberration but rather an integral part of the system, he must go for Ben-Gvir, Smotrich and their racism and culture of incitement to go, too. It will take years to curb Kahanism, but we must try to do so.

Ahmad Tibi is a Knesset member from the Hadash-Ta’al faction.

This article is reproduced in its entirety