It is Our Responsibility to Remove the Mask and Say: Ben Gvir Seeks to Harm Israel’s Democracy | Orly Erez-Likhovski

Itamar Ben Gvir’s invitation to speak to high school students at Blich High School constitutes a moral failure. The fact that he serves as a Member of Knesset does not warrant his invitation to a public school.

The phenomenon named Itamar Ben Gvir is, in my opinion, Kahanism in disguise, and is, thus, a threat to Israel’s democracy. Ben Gvir does not hide his admiration of Baruch Goldstein, Kahane and his legacy, and his aversion to the way Kahane was denounced by Israeli society. It seems that after we succeeded in disqualifying three of his friends from running for Knesset, the founders of “Otzma Yehudit – Jewish Power”, Michael Ben-Ari, Baruch Marzel and Ben-Zion Gopstein – Ben Gvir understood that in order to avoid his own disqualification from running for Knesset he needs to downplay his opinions.

But we should not be confused – Ben Gvir continues to advance Kahane’s racist ideology: instead of saying that all Arabs need to be expelled from Israel, he talks about the expulsion of those who are disloyal or the expulsion of supporters of terrorism. The Supreme Court may not have disqualified Ben Gvir’s candidacy, but it said harsh things about his positions, and stated that the evidence brought against him – for example the statement that “Jewish power is to expel our enemies, anyone who is disloyal gets a one way ticket […] Jewish power is money to the neighborhoods – and not to our enemies” – is “significant and extremely disturbing” and that they bring Ben Gvir even closer to that forbidden line that will bar him from running for Knesset.

In my opinion, the Ben Gvir of 2022 is much more dangerous than Ben Gvir of 2019, because the Supreme Court’s harsh statements have been forgotten, and it seems that his ideology has become legitimate, partly because of the tremendous exposure he has received in the media, with the support of former Prime Minister Netanyahu and his followers. Ben Gvir may not have been disqualified by the Supreme Court, but his opinions are extreme and dangerous.

Ben Gvir’s invitation to speak with students at Blich High School [in Ramat Gan] constitutes a moral failure. [Blich High School has become a symbol of democracy, as it holds mock elections before every national election, and in 1977 predicted the victory of Likud, and they still get press attention during election season to this day.] The fact that Ben Gvir was not disqualified, and that he serves as a Member of Knesset, cannot justify inviting him to a public school, especially one that serves as a symbol of our democracy, and one that, by law, should educate its students to love all people, develop a respectful attitude towards human rights, and educate towards the pursuit of peace and tolerance.

A school’s principal must know, and if they don’t – should be reminded, that with his words, Ben Gvir encourages hatred of the other, undermining the judicial system, and the destruction of the basic values of Israel’s democracy. It is our responsibility to remove the mask and say things as they are: Ben Gvir, like his predecessors, seeks to destroy Israel’s democracy and deny the rights of the Arab citizens of Israel. We must not allow him to do so.

Translated from the Hebrew op-ed published September 8, 2022 in Maariv.