Ben-Gvir Just EXPOSED What Netanyahu Was Secretly Protecting

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Right, so Itamar Ben-Gvir appeared on former Israeli hostage Rom Braslavski’s podcast to complain that Netanyahu had reduced strikes in Gaza under the ceasefire.

He of course wanted the strikes ramped up again, to no surprise whatsoever, but while explaining his reasoning, he managed to undermine his own security justification in a single sentence, leaving Netanyahu holding the burnt remains of what he was trying to promote by way of another Israel led Gaza deal to the world.

The word to pay attention to here is “targeted”.

Because that word lasts about as long as a snowball in the Sahara.
Thirty or forty every night.

You may have heard that call elsewhere in independent media, but just keep that number in mind for a moment, because what follows takes hold of his argument, stuffs it in a cannon, and fires it straight into the Sun.

According to the legal framework set by Israel’s own High Court, that is supposed to mean an individually identified person, based on solid and verifiable information, who is directly taking part in hostilities. Less harmful options should be used if possible, and each strike must meet necessity and proportionality on its own facts.

At least, that’s the official story.

Ben-Gvir starts with a nightly number, then says those killed do not even have to pose an immediate danger. What he is doing is swapping an individual, case-by-case test for a quota and his own judgment about who should live and who should die instead.

Then he says they do not actually have to present an immediate danger.

Well, if the people being killed do not need to be an immediate threat, what exactly is being targeted?

The answer seems to be whoever Ben-Gvir’s magic 8-ball says should not be alive by sunrise.

That’s it. The test is state sanctioned murder.

Not what they’re doing. Not what they’re about to do. Just whether Itamar Ben-Gvir thinks they deserve to live. Playing God.

And then, in case anyone was still unsure how he gets from there to killing dozens every night, he explains.

“They are not people.”
Well, problem solved, humanity erased.

It’s much easier to suggest a nightly body count once you’ve decided those bodies are not human beings.

And of course that line is not just some extra bit of racist nastiness thrown in at the end for good measure. It’s doing all the work. You have to remove the humanity first, because otherwise “thirty or forty every night” sounds exactly like what it is.

A quota.

Ben-Gvir rattles off his numbers as if he’s reading out the week’s rubbish collection schedule. Thirty tonight, forty tomorrow, and if his poll numbers dip, he’ll throw in a bonus round for the crowd.

And he was not being pressed in some hostile TV interview.

Braslavski is a former Israeli soldier who was held hostage in Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

So this was a long-form discussion with a sympathetic host, not a stray answer dragged out of Ben-Gvir under pressure. He was at ease. He was explaining what he believed Israeli policy should be. He lives for this.

The context was Netanyahu reducing strikes in Gaza under the ceasefire, but it wasn’t enough for Ben-Gvir.

Ben-Gvir wanted more.

Not in response to a specific new attack he had identified. Not because thirty-seven particular people were planning something that night.

He wanted a number.
Which puts Netanyahu in a difficult spot, since Ben-Gvir is not just another far-right loudmouth ranting into a webcam from his mother’s basement-he’s doing it from a ministerial office.

He is Israel’s Minister of National Security.

Now, of course that title does not mean he controls the military’s big red button.

Ben-Gvir cannot personally order airstrikes in Gaza. Shouting into a podcast microphone does not magically turn his words into military orders, no matter how much he might want it to.

He oversees the police and prison service. He also sits on Israel’s security cabinet, so he is not shouting through the window from the car park either.

He is inside the government.

Netanyahu put him there, kept him there, and earlier this month, defended keeping him there.

Israel’s High Court has already dealt with challenges over Ben-Gvir’s continued position and claims that he improperly interfered with policing.

In April, the court stopped short of ordering his removal, but it did set binding restrictions on his conduct.

Then, on 5 August, Netanyahu told the High Court there were no legal or administrative reasons to dismiss him.

Nothing sufficient.

No reason to worry.

Just another episode of “Ben-Gvir being Ben-Gvir”, as if that’s supposed to comfort anyone.

Ten days later, Ben-Gvir sat down for this podcast and called for thirty or forty people to be killed every night, including those who did not pose an immediate danger.

Now, that High Court dispute was about his ministerial conduct and policing. It was not about what he did and didn’t say on a podcast, which in this case had obviously not happened yet, and Netanyahu did not go into court defending a nightly killing quota.

But Netanyahu did defend this man staying in ministerial office despite the controversy already surrounding how he uses power.

He told the court there were no grounds to remove him, and Ben-Gvir promptly went out and provided some new material for everyone to consider.

Quite thoughtful of him really, always looking out for the High Court’s overtime pay like this isn’t it?

Meanwhile, this is the part Netanyahu does want the rest of the world to see.

Netanyahu and Jared Kushner discussing a Gaza plan after Kushner’s separate talks with Hamas, not that Kushner has any elected role to do any of this whatsoever of course. Who exactly is running the United States these days?

But this is the image Netanyahu wants to present.

There are talks. There is a plan. Responsible people are discussing difficult matters. Bibi, the great statesman, is managing the situation.
Then, sitting inside his own government, is Ben-Gvir. That’s a problem for the PR campaign, isn’t it?

You cannot spend part of the day presenting yourself as the leader managing a political process and the other part pretending the minister undermining that process belongs to some unrelated government you just read about in the news.

Ben-Gvir is part of Netanyahu’s coalition.

He sits on the security cabinet.

His party helps Netanyahu stay in office.

So when Ben-Gvir says this, Netanyahu cannot just look slightly embarrassed and push him onto someone else’s account.

He chose the account.

And this obsession with turning destruction into numbers did not start on that podcast.

“I demolished 5,000 this year. We will demolish 10,000.”
How eager he is to cheer on more Palestinian destruction.

Five thousand becomes ten thousand.

Thirty becomes forty.

Everything is a score to him.

It’s Top Trumps for sociopaths. My demolition score beats yours. My prison conditions are harsher. My nightly death toll will have the party conference clapping like trained seals at feeding time.

The number pushes the people out of sight, but then to him they aren’t people at all.

Once you are talking about ten thousand demolitions, nobody is supposed to ask who lived in those homes, what happened to them afterwards, whether children were there or whether any of it achieved what Ben-Gvir claims.

Ten thousand sounds tough.

Thirty or forty sounds decisive.

The details become an inconvenience, which is convenient when the details involve real people.

This is how Ben-Gvir presents himself to his political base, not as someone making difficult decisions, but as the man willing to do more.

More demolitions. Harsher prison conditions. More killings. More punishment.

Whatever the last number was, double it, pose for the cameras, and wait for applause.

He has already been bragging about worsening conditions for Palestinian prisoners and cutting food. Israel’s own courts have had to step in over whether prisoners were getting the minimum needed to survive.

That’s an area where he does have real power.

He oversees institutions that directly affect Palestinian lives. He sits in the room where security policy is discussed. He pushes Netanyahu from the right and keeps telling the Israeli public that whatever violence is already happening, it is not enough.

That changes things even when he does not get everything he asks for.

He says what was supposed to be unacceptable.

Then it becomes a coalition demand.

Then someone else proposes something only a little less appalling and is rewarded for being the reasonable one.

The whole debate still shifts.

And Netanyahu benefits from that more than he would probably like to admit because Ben-Gvir always makes him look moderate by comparison.

It is quite an achievement really. You would have to stand next to an erupting volcano to make Netanyahu look like the calm, sensible adult in the room, but Ben-Gvir has managed it with room to spare and a fire extinguisher left over.

Ben-Gvir demands thirty or forty killings every night. Netanyahu can demand fewer and present himself as the restraining force. Well people still face getting killed by that logic, don’t they?

Ben-Gvir says Palestinians are not people. Netanyahu manages not to repeat it at a Washington press conference and gets treated as the adult in the room.

What a standard.

And yet Netanyahu keeps Ben-Gvir in government.

He defends his continued position.

He relies on far-right coalition partners like him to stay in power.

Then, whenever Ben-Gvir lets something especially toxic slip, Netanyahu acts like a raccoon wandered in through the window and started going through the bins, and nobody is quite sure who left the window open.

Sorry, but no.
Ben-Gvir is useful to Netanyahu. Very useful.

He keeps part of the coalition together. He pushes policy further right. He gives Netanyahu someone more extreme to point at when he wants foreign governments to believe he is the moderate one.

He is also a liability, because every so often he says the quiet part so loudly that the whole arrangement becomes impossible to hide and that’s what has happened here.

The remarkable thing is not that Ben-Gvir has suddenly revealed himself as an extremist, he’s made that abundantly obvious for years.

What he has shown is the absurdity of Netanyahu pretending Ben-Gvir is someone else’s responsibility.

He is a minister because Netanyahu kept him in office.

His party is in the coalition because Netanyahu needs it there.

His voice has influence because the Israeli government gave him an office to use it from.

And with Israel heading towards an election, this kind of language does not stay inside one podcast.

It becomes a bid.

Who can promise the harshest policy?
Who can demolish the most homes?
Who can make prison conditions worse?
Who can demand the highest nightly number?
That is where this becomes more than just one disgusting quote.

Once political competition turns into a contest for cruelty, the opening bid keeps going up.

Yesterday’s extremism becomes today’s coalition demand, and tomorrow’s compromise starts somewhere that would once have ended a political career.

Ben-Gvir does not have to win every argument to keep dragging the government his way.

He only has to keep making the argument.

Ben-Gvir has destroyed his own security justification by admitting that the people he wants killed do not need to pose an immediate danger, and Netanyahu cannot keep presenting him as someone else’s problem while relying on him, keeping him, and defending his place in government. Ben-Gvir may not command Israel’s strikes in Gaza, but he sits inside the government arguing for more killing and fewer limits because Netanyahu chose to keep him there. What came out of that microphone is Ben-Gvir’s responsibility. The political consequence belongs to Netanyahu as well.

For more coverage on Israel being it’s own worst enemy when it comes to trying to convince us they are still the victims in all of this do stick with the channel, we have none of that nonsense here, and here’s a handy recommendation in light of that as your suggested next watch.

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