Do we like them?

Do we like Itamar Ben-Gvir?

Our score: 0 out of 10. A criminal conviction for racist incitement, then years of pushing harsh measures against Palestinians, and this year's remarks that Gaza Palestinians are not people.

Ben-Gvir came up in the far-right Kahanist scene. AP reports the army barred him from compulsory service as a teen for being too extreme, he followed the late rabbi Meir Kahane, and he worked as a defence lawyer for extremist Jews accused of violence against Palestinians. For years he was the fringe guy nobody expected to be in cabinet.

The record is long. He was convicted in 2007 of racist incitement against Arabs, and AP counts eight convictions in all, including for supporting a terrorist organisation. In 2022 he brandished a pistol and urged police to fire on Palestinian stone-throwers. Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway sanctioned him in July 2025 over alleged incitement of extremist violence against Palestinians.

On the harm check, his own words do the work. In August he told a former hostage's podcast that Israel should be killing 30 to 40 people in Gaza every night, and said “They shouldn't live.” AP notes similar past statements have been cited at the UN's top court as evidence of genocidal intent. Ben-Gvir had no response in that report.

In office he pushed hard. He won a law making hanging the default sentence for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks in military courts, wearing noose-shaped pins before the vote. Rights groups called it institutionalised discrimination, and four European foreign ministers called it discriminatory. NPR reports he also sharply cut food for Palestinian prisoners until the Supreme Court overturned it.

In May he promoted videos of himself waving a flag over bound flotilla detainees, about 430 people held by his police. Foreign leaders condemned it, and so did Netanyahu. Separately, Israel's attorney general backed petitions to remove him, alleging he misused his office to sway police work. He rejected that and said “Democracy will not fall; the judicial dictatorship will fall.” The court heard it in April, and the reports we read give no final ruling.

On LGBTQ+ issues, it's mixed history. As police minister at the 2023 Jerusalem Pride he pledged security for marchers and was heckled with chants of “shame”. Reuters notes he once called the parade an abomination and now says gay people are his brothers. Protecting a march is his job, not a campaign for anyone's rights, and we found no real good-deed record to set against everything else.