This Israeli minister wants a full-on religious war. His proposals for Ramadan risked starting one.
Israeli far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
There’s a lot to worry about in Israel right now, more than 150 days into the war.
The hostages, more than 130 of them, may be running out of time. More than 30,000 Gazans have died, and many more may be on the brink of starvation. Soldiers are still dying in action almost daily. And let’s not even think about the northern border.
With all that, the racist fulminations of an influential but relatively minor far-right minister in Israel’s governing coalition on the eve of Ramadan may seem low on the priority list. Especially given that Interior Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Jewish Power Party, who proposed broad restrictions on Muslim access to Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque during the holy month, has had his power over the site dramatically reduced.
But of all the dangers facing Israel, Ben-Gvir’s efforts to stoke hatred between Jews and Muslims threaten to be a particularly effective conduit toward the ultimate nightmare scenario: a multifront war that includes the West Bank and Jerusalem, along with violent confrontations throughout Israel between Jewish and Arab citizens.
Some American Jews “say, ‘Well he’s a nothingburger, he has no influence,'” said Shaul Magid, author of a 2021 biography on Meir Kahane, the extremist American rabbi who founded the Jewish Defense League and, later in life, moved to Israel, where his followers included a young Ben-Gvir.
“It’s a total mistake.”
Ben-Gvir, whose ministerial portfolio ordinarily includes some oversight of the Temple Mount — a Jerusalem complex that’s sacred for Jews, Muslims and Christians — proposed draconian restrictions on Muslim worship there during Ramadan. Ramadan is historically a tense time at the site, with Israeli police engaging in violent clashes with worshipers; in recent years, the holiday has also seen Israeli nationalist marches through the area.
So Ben-Gvir’s proposal might have appeared to make sense — except that Israeli security forces roundly opposed the measures.
And no wonder: Broad restrictions at Al Aqsa during the holiest month in Islam would be almost sure to incite Muslims who live in Israel, and turn the fighting in Gaza into a broader religious struggle — helping fulfill Hamas’ explicit goal in launching the operation it called “Al Aqsa flood” on Oct. 7.
Ben-Gvir “would like the Arabs to behave badly, because that would give him justification to tighten the screws even more,” said Magid. Kahanists, like most religious Zionists, believe Jews have a heavenly mandate to settle Gaza and the West Bank. But they go a step further, and explicitly cite Jewish theology to encourage the subjugation of Arabs.
“Kahanism is a racist movement within Judaism,” explained Dov Elbaum, an Israeli public intellectual and journalist who once spent months reporting undercover on Kahane and his followers.
Yes, it’s promising that Ben-Gvir’s proposals for how to handle Ramadan weren’t accepted — and that Israel’s war cabinet has taken over control of the Temple Mount for Ramadan, further sidelining him. But Ben-Gvir, Elbaum said, is adept at playing social media to his advantage, and a savvy political operator despite his thuggish public image. There’s no guarantee that this setback is suggestive of his long-term power.
“That’s really the difference between Kahane and Ben-Gvir,” said Magid. “Kahane really was a revolutionary. He actually wanted to overthrow the state … Ben-Gvir is a work-within-the-system incrementalist who sees an opportunity to engage in an ideology of conquest.”
The effects of that incremental work are already showing.
Since Oct. 7, Ben-Gvir has expedited the process for Israelis to obtain gun licenses; stepped up arrests of pro-Palestinian activists for speech-related offenses; and sown so much distrust among Israel’s defense establishment that security agencies have decided to stop attending his meetings.
Most critically, Ben-Gvir has been successful at quietly undermining any possibility of a two state solution.
Although he is not in the war cabinet, which is responsible for operational decisions in Gaza, his ministry does have jurisdiction over the West Bank, where he has at best turned a blind eye to Jewish terrorism. “Under the radar … he’s creating a reality in the West Bank that is expansionist, dominating and creating more enemies on the ground,” said Magid.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who brought Ben-Gvir’s far-right party into the governing coalition that allowed him to take office in late 2022, has so far enabled Ben-Gvir’s behavior, curbing some of his worst instincts while doing little about the West Bank. He initially accepted Ben-Gvir’s recommendations for restrictions on Temple Mount access during Ramadan, for instance, but then deferred to the war cabinet and security establishment, which recommended broader freedom of worship.
This “good cop, bad cop” game, Magid said, allows even those who don’t like Ben-Gvir to carry on as if he is not a major threat. “Ben-Gvir is really testing the Israeli electorate,” Magid said: “How much can they tolerate his expansionist ideology?”
For those watching with concern from overseas, our best option — and our minimum responsibility — is to call out Ben-Gvir’s damaging words and actions. And as the American Jewish community raises millions for Israel in this time of need, we should make sure much of it gets funneled to organizations and people within Israel that stand against him and for coexistence. This is a vital act of solidarity with Israel. No matter how much power Ben-Gvir is able to accrue from here on, it’s already clear that there will be a long struggle to counter the anger and hate in Israeli discourse.
That’s particularly true, Elbaum noted, when it comes to the rising generation of Israelis. Already in the last election, before the traumas of Oct. 7, Ben-Gvir found surprising pockets of strength with young voters, even in liberal enclaves like Tel Aviv. Reversing these trends, he said, will require deep investment in liberal education in Israel. “We have to put a lot of energy and creativity into how we educate our youths,” Elbaum said. “They know nothing about Israel’s Declaration of Independence … other religions, about what is a Jewish and democratic state.”
“The main war in Israel is not in Gaza,” he added. “It’s a war on the heart of our young people.”
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