Ben Gvir responds to report: Dem Senator tried to convince Netanyahu to reject right wing politician

As I made him a leader of peoples, A prince and commander of peoples,

Isaiah

54:

4

(the israel bible)

October 4, 2022

5 min read

An Israeli politician who was sidelined for many years is now in the spotlight and will be the “kingmaker” that may help Netanyahu return to the prime minister’s seat. Itamar Ben Gvir is once again at the center of controversy and is being targeted by the left-wing and terrorists alike. Most Americans are unfamiliar with Ben Gvir, or are only familiar with the one-sided caricature presented by the biased media.

Itamar Ben Gvir has gained enormously in popularity recently among Israeli voters. Recent polls show Ben Gvir surging in popularity as election day approaches, giving Otzma Yehudit between eight and nine seats. 

Ben Gvir, a lawyer, is labeled an “extremist” by left-wing and pro-Palestinian groups for advocating for the death penalty for terrorists. Israeli law permits the death penalty though it has only been imposed twice in the history of the state. He also wants to establish a new ministry for encouraging the immigration of “enemies” and people who are “disloyal” to the state. 

In August, opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu brokered an agreement between Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, head of the Religious Zionist Party. They agreed to run together in the Knesset elections being held on November 1. The merger created a unified right wing that increased the ability of Netanyahu to form a coalition as head of the Likud party.

Reports claim that Ben Gvir was offered a minister’s seat as part of Netanyahu’s deal.

An article in Axios on Saturday reported that Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, warned Netanyahu that including Otzma Yehudit and its leader Itamar Ben Gvir in a coalition would harm US-Israel relations. Menendez reportedly made these comments to Netanyahu while visiting Israel last month as part of a bipartisan congressional delegation led by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

Citing two unnamed American sources familiar at the month, the report said Menendez told Netanyahu he had “serious concerns” about including “extremist and polarizing individuals like Ben Gvir” in a future government.

“The senator told Netanyahu he needed to realize the composition of such a coalition could seriously erode bipartisan support in Washington, which has been a pillar of the bilateral relationship between the US and Israel,” one of the sources cited by Axios said.

“People who were in the room saw how pissed off Bibi got” with Menendez’s comments, one of the sources said.

Netanyahu held a press conference on Monday evening, coming to the defene of Ben Gvir.

“I would have expected them to warn us of a government that depends on the Muslim Brotherhood who support terrorism and Ahmed Tibi and Ayman Odeh,” Netanyahu said. “Odeh said that Nasrallah is a hero, after that is it any wonder that Lapid ran to sell him the gas of the citizens of Israel?”

In an interview with Israel365 News, Ben Gvir responded to the report.

“I am deeply concerned by reports that Senator Menendez has aimed incorrect and mistaken criticisms at the millions of Israelis who will soon vote in favor of a center-right government and me personally,” Ben Gvir said. “Everyone knows that the Senator is a true friend of Israel and a champion of the US-Israel relationship, and more importantly, he is a man of integrity. Therefore, my sense is that he would not have made the statementsas  reported had he been correctly informed of the positions I hold, as well as those I do not hold.

“Those who are enemies of a strong Israel seek to besmirch me by calling me and my party racist. But the truth is that we’re anti-racist – we are fighting against the racist antisemitism fomenting within the boundaries of our homeland. We believe that Israel needs to uproot terror organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, just as the United States defeated Al Qaida. Like millions of Americans, we believe that peace comes through strength and that Israel’s policies should be based upon the firm enforcement of our right to sovereignty and self-defense. In the next government, I will work to give Israel’s soldiers the confidence to fight Jihadist terror without rules of engagement that would endanger their own safety and lessen the effectiveness of their efforts. I hope to shape a justice system that works for all law-abiding citizens and residents – including those living under the corrupt Palestinian Authority which systematically represses Palestinian society while preaching Israel-hate as a matter of course.”

US State Department spokesman Ned Price told the media that the Biden administration does not interfere in Israel’s internal politics.

His political platform has been targeted as “extreme” by the left-wing, including acting Prime Minister Yair Lapid who, on Sunday told the Kikar Hashabbat website, that Ben Gvir is more dangerous than the Arab politicians who oppose the existence of a Jewish state.

“Ben-Gvir is a dangerous man,” Lapid said. “He’s more dangerous than [Ayman] Odeh. There’s no chance that Odeh will convince an entire generation of Jewish youth of the righteousness of his path; there’s definitely a danger that Ben-Gvir will convince young Jews of the righteousness of his path.”

Odeh, the man Lapid prefers to Ben Gvir, has endorsed violence against Jews, including encouraging Arab rioters in Jerusalem, comparing Israeli terror victims to dead Arab terrorists, and participating in a joint Hamas-Fatah press conference in which the two rival Palestinian factions declared they would make amends in order to wage war against Israel together.

In Ocober 2021, Odeh physically assaulted Ben Gvir in a hospital. Odeh was visiting a Hamas terrorist who was being treated while on a hunger strike. Ben Gvir was inspecting the conditions the terrorist was being kept in.

Indeed, as Ben Gvir’s popuarity among Israelis grows, the opposition grows as well. On Monday night, a 15-year-old Arab boy was arrestedon charges of setting fire to the tent of MK Itamar Ben-Gvir’s parliamentary office in the Shimon Ha’Tzaddik neighborhood of Jerusalem. The incident took place during a rally of his supporters, many of who are religious Jews living in Judea and Samaria.

“I’m glad that the security forces acted quickly and efficiently and arrested the terrorist, who threw a Molotov Cocktail and tried to set fire to my office,” Ben Gvir said in response. “This arson is the fruit of Gantz and Lapid’s incitement against me, words can kill.'”

This claim by Price is not entirely true as Democrats have a long history of meddling in Israeli elections. Last year, an article in Tablet Magazine asserted that Biden interfered in Israel’s elections“by strong-arming the Emiratis into publicly distancing themselves from Bibi (Netanyahu).”.

Democrats in the White House actually have a long history of interfering in Israeli politics. NGO-Monitor reported that in July 2016, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations released a report detailing the use of resources developed with State Department funding to advance the V-15 campaign. The subcommittee concluded that One Voice did not directly use U.S. funds for its election campaign or violate its agreement with the U.S. government. However, it sharply criticized the State Department for not properly evaluating One Voice before grant approval and monitoring the organization during the course of the project. The State Department “failed to adequately guard against the risk of OneVoice using government-funded resources for political purposes… [d]espite OneVoice’s previous political activity in the 2013 Israeli election.”

But even before Obama, Democrat presidents worked to influence Israeli elections. In an interview broadcast on Israel’s Channel 10 news in April 2018, former-President Bill Clinton admitted working to help Shimon Peres in his unsuccessful run against Netanyahu in 1996.

 

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