The Minister of National Security arrived at Kibbutz Nir Oz on Tuesday. Waiting for him at the entrance was a civilian, who wanted to protest his arrival at the site, who may have paid the heaviest price for the failures of Black Sabbath. Videos circulating on social media show the citizen shouting at the minister's vehicle while two policemen move him aside so they won't interfere with the minister's convoy.
In a normal universe, the minister would stop the convoy, get out of the car and talk. Absorbs shouting if necessary, bows his head and listens. Nevertheless, this is the home of the residents of Nir Oz: the house where they were murdered and from which they were kidnapped. If he invades their privacy, he is a government minister, he is allowed to visit anywhere in the country; But let him show a minimum of empathy, at least as much as the one he insists on showing toward those who serve his purposes.
The truth must be told: Itamar Ben-Gvir is a coward. He is afraid to confront the families of prisoners and evacuees, even retired police officials. He reserves his courage for confrontations with those who cannot answer him, or are required to answer him politely. Usually these are senior security officials, who absorb from him the pile of Torah slime that serves some immediate political need.
Ben-Gvir enters Nir Oz – despite the objections: "Why does he have to come and dance on the blood of the dead?" // Photo: 27A
Yesterday, it was IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy who was asked at a cabinet meeting to remove the fighters who used the muezzin in a mosque in Jenin. Halevi tried to explain that the soldiers had deviated from orders and values. Ben-Gvir was less interested in orders and values. He demanded that they be reinstated immediately, accusing the decision of harming the soldiers and undermining deterrence.
Desecration of a mosque will lead to damage to a synagogue
It's an upside-down world: a convicted serial criminal, who didn't serve a single minute in the IDF and spent most of his adult life either as an ISA officer or representing those who interfered with the security forces in their work, teaches values and security to someone who devotes his entire life to state security. He dares to do so at what is perhaps the most difficult time in Israel's history, when the future of the nation rests – in practice – on the shoulders of the chief of staff, who had to take the time to hear the words of the most shameful minister in the history of the state.
The gap between the two is so great that it is almost insulting to mention it. It is even more insulting to know that at the end of this campaign, and regardless of its outcome, Halevy will lay down the ranks, bear responsibility for the failure of October 7, and go home – while Ben-Gvir will remain here and continue to harm democracy and undermine security.
The soldier singing at a mosque in Jenin, photo: uncredited
It's not just the gap between the two that's huge. There is also the gap in their understanding of how a state works (i.e., who commands the IDF and determines its values), in their understanding of how the incident should be handled (Ben-Gvir believed that the affair should be closed quietly, as if the IDF is a mafiosi organization and as if Israel is not a democracy), and in their understanding of the damage it caused (a wave of unnecessary criticism of Israel in an already complicated period). He didn't even understand, or didn't want to understand, the obvious: that a Jewish desecration of a mosque could lead to mass desecration of synagogues and harm to Jewish sanctities and Jews in Israel and around the world.
Israel's enemies have always waged religious wars against it: Muslims against Jews, and in the distant past Christians against Jews. Israel knew how to rise and fight only wars of justice. With the shallowness and violence he permits, Ben-Gvir compares conditions and leads Israel into a religious war. He may have taken Baruch Goldstein's picture off the living room, but he continues his path in practice. It used to be funny: Ben-Gvir was a loud rattle that operated not only on Purim. Now it is mostly dangerous, and it may end in blood.
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