Itamar Ben Gvir chose to attack US President Joe Biden over the pages of the "Wall Street Journal". The position of the Minister of Internal Security and head of the party known as "Otzma Yehudit" on the US President is not only interesting, but mainly representative - the government in which he sits.
It is a representation whose essence is not in the formal sense of "joint governmental responsibility", but in the essential-public sense.
Ben Gvir is increasingly used as "the face of the government".
Time and again he takes responsibility for the showcase of the "full right-wing government", often as a single mannequin in the window.
showcase
Government meeting in Kirya in Tel Aviv (archive), photo: Kobi Gideon / L.A.M
Ben Gabir has not made a dramatic change in his laws since he was appointed kosher, and perhaps this is to his credit.
Perhaps this is the man who has run long distances in Israeli politics and believes with all his heart that in three or four more elections there is no government without him.
Today it seems that he will not be a member of any government formed after the events of October 7.
He is not Tzachi Hangabi and Israel Katz, who began their political careers in difficult confrontations on campus with Arab students and knew how to pass easily to the depths of the Israeli consensus, because Ben Gabir does not even use cosmetics.
Full full price
Ben Gvir mostly talks.
His working assumption that this action is enough today to increase his power in the next Knesset, and he is probably right.
The question is at what price.
What price will the state pay and what price will the right-wing camp pay?
His words resonate not because they are in the possession of the "Words of the Wise", but because most of them create damage - mainly to the right-wing camp.
Ben Gvir is the hottest commodity in the Israeli left, a mouth that does not stop giving gifts to a bruised camp whose vision for two states for two peoples is fading away in regional blood, sweat and tears.
Therefore, Ben Gvir is one of the engines that inspire life and hope in the Israeli left for the two-state vision.
In the view of the left, it is an optimal fuel for fueling international motivation that will push for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
It is not difficult to explain why the Palestinians need to be protected from Israeli policies as shown today in the showcase of which Ben Gvir is the lively presenter.
And if salvation does not come from international pressure, Ben Gabir's shows push more and more Israelis who define themselves as "right-wing" to vote for Lapid or Gantz.
They are not convinced that the arguments of the Minister of Internal Security add strength, security or respect to Israel.
On the contrary.
Knows that Bibi will not do to him what Yitzchak Rabin did to Shula Aloni.
Netanyahu and Ben Gvir, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Ben Gabir's damage to the Israeli right is seven times greater because of the sound of thin silence that is heard after his words.
The members of the government surrounding him grumble, at best, and this grumbling is also filtered by media consultants and electoral calculation computers.
These days there is no Jewish power to express in full mouth what most of the government ministers are thinking in their stomachs in the face of Ben Gabir's repeated appearances.
There are no value statements.
There is no polemic and no condemnation.
Ben Gabir's words are like the buzz of an invisible mosquito on the government floor in Jerusalem.
Everyone hopes someone else will take care of the annoying hum.
Ben Gvir is the only one who really says what he thinks, he knows that Bibi will not do to him what Yitzchak Rabin did to Shula Aloni because of her "big mouth".
It seems that the right-wing camp may pay in full for the fizzy drink served to the Israeli public in the taste of Ben Gabir, with the bubbles of silence from Netanyahu and the ministers.
If the event ends with the doubling of Ben Gabir's power, perhaps the right-wing camp will know how to digest it, but if it is an essential element that will dictate the results of the next elections and lead to the collapse of the dominance of the right as it has been for the past forty years, the historical price will be heavy.
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