Let me introduce you to Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of Israel’s far-right Jewish Power (Otzma Yehudit) party, the minister of national security, and an almost cartoonishly evil man.
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me → let → security
You’ll have heard his name before: he made international news when he filmed himself taunting bound activists who had been detained trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.
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who → hear → Gaza
But you might not be familiar with many of his recent shocking comments, because they haven’t been widely covered by much of the US media.
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they → cover → media
Let’s start with an AI-generated video that Ben-Gvir posted on Twitter/X on Sunday and then deleted.
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Gvir → let → Sunday
It shows portly Palestinian prisoners being loaded on to a conveyor belt and going into a detention camp, then emerging emaciated.
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prisoners → show → camp
The caption is “we promised – we delivered!” which seems to be a reference to the national security minister’s promise to worsen conditions for Palestinian prisoners.
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which → promise → prisoners
An ambitious goal, considering conditions are already hellish: Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has likened the prisons where Palestinians are kept to “torture camps”.
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Palestinians → consider → camps
I suggest you go watch it yourself to fully take in how awful it is.
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it → suggest → it
(It may have been deleted, but it lives on online).
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it → delete → ?
If the podcaster Hasan Piker had tweeted something similar, with Israelis as the subject rather than Palestinians, it would be front-page news.
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it → tweet → subject
US lawmakers, all of whom seem to be obsessed with Piker, would be demanding that the podcaster be punished.
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podcaster → seem → Piker
Ben-Gvir, by the way, has some imaginative ideas for punishment.
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Gvir → have → punishment
One of his sick fantasies is to put crocodiles in moats around prisons where Palestinians are held to stop prison breaks.
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Palestinians → put → breaks
The plan is now on hold because Israeli rights groups have said it is cruel to crocodiles.
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it → say → crocodiles
I can’t stress enough that, in any discussion of Palestinian “prisoners”, it’s important to remember that many of these people have not gone through any sort of due process.
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many → stress → process
Thousands of prisoners, including about 200 children, are held under “administrative detention”: a technocratic name for a dystopian practice.
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Thousands → include → practice
To quote the B’Tselem definition: “In administrative detention, a person is held without trial without having committed an offense, on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future.
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he → quote → future
As this measure is supposed to be preventive, it has no time limit.
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it → suppose → limit
The person is detained without legal proceedings, by order of the regional military commander, based on classified evidence that is not revealed to them.”
In other words: if you are Palestinian, heavily armed Israeli soldiers can come into your house in the middle of the night, drag you into a de facto torture chamber despite the fact that you haven’t committed a crime, and hold you there indefinitely without telling you why you’re being held or informing your family where you are.
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you → detain → family
When you hear the word “prisoner”, people like Ben-Gvir want you to think of dangerous terrorists who deserve everything they get.
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they → hear → everything
In reality, many are people like Layan Nasir: a 23-year-old woman who was taken away at gunpoint from her parents’ home for no clear reason and only made international news because she is a Christian.
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she → take → news
But back to Ben-Gvir, who presides over prisoners.
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who → preside → prisoners
One of the minister of national security’s greatest achievements is a racist death penalty law that, because of the way it is worded, exclusively applies to Palestinians.
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it → word → Palestinians
Last month Ben-Gvir posted a video of a gallows complex where Palestinians convicted of terror offences will be hanged.
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Palestinians → post → offences
For his birthday in June, he celebrated with a noose-themed cake.
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he → celebrate → cake
Ben-Gvir doesn’t just want to hang his enemies; he wants more bloodshed in Gaza – which is still very much a killing field despite a so-called ceasefire.
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which → want → ceasefire
“I think we should be doing 30 to 40 targeted assassinations [in Gaza] per night,” Ben-Gvir recently said on a podcast.
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Gvir → think → podcast
“Not just those who pose an immediate threat.
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who → pose → threat
There are people there who don’t deserve to live …
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who → be → ?
I could go on and on: Ben-Gvir is a busy man.
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Gvir → go → ?
He recently filmed himself entering prison cells containing Palestinian women and taunting them.
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himself → film → them
On the same podcast where he urged nightly killings in Gaza, he went on to say that he thought Israel should occupy the entirety of Gaza.
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Israel → urge → Gaza
And, on Monday, he stormed the al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem, accompanied by extremist settlers and with the protection of armed police.
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he → storm → police
This is something he does regularly: it is a blatant provocation and a contravention of an agreement that gives Muslims exclusive rights to worship at al-Aqsa while Jews pray at the Western Wall.
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Jews → do → Wall
Ben-Gvir and others like him, however, want to change the decades-old status quo and have Israel control everything.
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Israel → want → everything
“We are in charge here in Jerusalem and all of the land of Israel,” Ben-Gvir said during a 2023 visit to the compound.
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Gvir → say → compound
Ben-Gvir is so shameless that there is no way to spin his conduct.
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Gvir → be → conduct
He has been condemned and sanctioned by politicians and governments around the world.
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He → condemn → world
Nevertheless, Israel’s apologists have tried to cast him as a fringe figure.
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apologists → try → figure
“Ben-Gvir’s statements do not reflect the policy of the State of Israel and should be condemned by all who care about Israel’s future,” the American Jewish Committee stated in August, after the politician’s comments about settlement in Gaza.
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Committee → reflect → Gaza
…and 17 more, not listed.
