Itamar Ben-Gvir
Israeli lawyer and politician (born 1976) / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Itamar Ben-Gvir (Hebrew: אִיתָמָר בֶּן גְּבִיר; born 6 May 1976) is an Israeli far-right politician and lawyer who has served as the Minister of National Security since 2022.[2] He is the leader of Otzma Yehudit, a Kahanist and anti-Arab party that won six seats in the 2022 Israeli legislative election, and is part of what has been called the most right-wing government in Israel's history.[3][4][5][6]
Itamar Ben-Gvir | |
---|---|
אִיתָמָר בֶּן גְּבִיר | |
Ministerial roles | |
2022– | Minister of National Security |
Faction represented in the Knesset | |
2021–2022 | Religious Zionist Party |
2022– | Otzma Yehudit |
Personal details | |
Born | (1976-05-06) 6 May 1976 (age 48) Mevaseret Zion, Israel |
Political party | Otzma Yehudit |
Spouse | Ayala Nimrodi |
Children | 6[1] |
Education | Ono Academic College |
Ben Gvir, who is a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has called for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are not loyal to Israel and has faced criminal charges of hate speech against Arabs.[7][8][6] He is "widely known for his openly racist, anti-Arab views and activities".[9] Ben Gvir was also previously convicted of supporting Kach, classified by Israel as a terrorist group, which espoused Kahanism, an anti-Arab and religious Zionist ideology.[10] In the 1990s, he protested against the Oslo Accords and was seen brandishing a Cadillac hood ornament stolen from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's car, who was later assassinated.[11][12] Ben Gvir was known to have a portrait in his living room of Baruch Goldstein, a Jewish extremist and Israeli-American mass murderer who massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron. He removed the portrait after he entered politics.[7]
Ben Gvir had been long accused of being a provocateur, having led several contentious marches to the Temple Mount as an activist and member of Knesset, through Jerusalem's Old City Muslim Quarter, and set up an office in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood which witnessed several evictions of Palestinians.[13] On 3 January 2023, he visited the Temple Mount where the al-Aqsa Mosque is located, spurring an international wave of criticism that labelled his visit purposely provocative.[13] As a lawyer, he is known for defending Jews accused of terrorism on trial in Israel.[14] In 2024, he was the subject of a foiled assassination plot by seven Arab citizens of Israel and four Palestinians from the West Bank.[15]