Why is Ben Gvir still in the government?
The scene, captured in a video posted on social media by the unabashedly fascist Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, is atrocious, obscene.
Mencachem Rosenaft
We see him as he struts alongside captive flotilla activists who are forced to kneel before him, blindfolded, their hands bound behind them. A woman prisoner is thrown to the ground. Ben Gvir taunts a prisoner.
Can you imagine the outrage if Hamas were to subject Israelis to such abuse? But wait, we all remember the horrific images of Israeli hostages manhandled and jeered at as they were dragged through Gaza City on October 7, 2023.
This is different, the pr flacks will say. No one has been killed. No one has been raped. Just physically abused, humiliated, dehumanized. And it would appear that no one present objected to the inhumane treatment to which the flotilla activists were being subjected.
Let me be clear. What we have seen in this video is a blatant violation not just of international law but of the most basic tenets of civilised human behaviour.
The 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War specifically prohibits “any measure of such a character as to cause the physical suffering . . . of protected persons,” which the flotilla activists clearly are. “This prohibition applies not only to murder, torture, corporal punishment, mutilation and medical or scientific experiments not necessitated by the medical treatment of a protected person, but also to any other measures of brutality whether applied by civilian or military agents.”
I don’t think that anyone with a modicum of integrity or belief in the inviolability of human beings as such can deny that what Ben Gvir and his stooges perpetrated constituted prohibited “measures of brutality . . . applied by civilian or military agents” within the meaning of this provision.
That very same Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”
Again, there can be no question whatsoever that the captive flotilla activists were, and possibly continue to be, subjected to blatant “outrages” upon “their personal dignity,” including “in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.”
That’s not all. In its preamble, the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1984, makes reference to “article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which provide that no one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” This Convention goes on to provide that “Each State Party shall undertake to prevent in any territory under its jurisdiction other acts of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment . . . when such acts are committed by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”
Israel signed the Convention against Torture in 1986 and ratified it in 1991.
To be sure, Prime Minister Netanyahu, in a mealy-mouthed semblance of a rebuke, said that ”the way that Minister Ben Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists is not in line with Israel’s values and norms.”
Good to know. At least it appears that Netanyahu recognises, or purports to recognise, that Israel has “values and norms.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar went further, writing on X, formerly Twitter, that Ben Gvir is “not the face of Israel” and accusing him of having “knowingly caused harm to our State in this disgraceful display — and not for the first time.”
And yet, as of this writing, Ben Gvir remains a member in good standing of the Netanyahu government, a colleague of Gideon Saar’s, and it does not appear that Netanyahu has any intention of firing him. By retaining Ben Gvir in his government and not firing him outright, Netanyahu has taken the stench of Ben Gvir’s dehumanisation and degradation of the flotilla activists upon himself and upon his government.
The repellent mistreatment of the detained flotilla activists reflects on Ben Gvir. His continued presence in the Israeli government is a millstone around Netanyahu’s neck.
It is all well and good for people to be dismayed by a New York Times column alleging rape and sexual violence against Palestinians. But what we have here is worse, far worse. It is undeniable, tangible evidence of an Israeli government minister engaging in the most heinous violations of the human rights and the human dignity of prisoners under his control. It is also a betrayal of everything Israel stands for.
This is not Theodor Herzl’s Zionism. This is not David Ben-Gurion’s Zionism. This is not Chaim Weizmann’s Zionism. This is not Hannah Szenes’ Zionism. This is not Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Zionism. This is not Menachem Begin’s Zionism. This is not Yitzhak Rabin’s Zionism, or Shimon Peres’, or Isaac Herzog’s, or Ehud Olmert’s, or Tzipi Livni’s, or Naftali Bennett’s, or Gadi Eisenkot’s, or Yair Lapid’s, or Yair Golan’s.
What Ben Gvir has done and is doing is a desecration of everything that Zionism and the State of Israel represent, and it is incumbent on all of us, on every one of us, who consider ourselves Zionists and supporters of Israel, to say so as loudly and as clearly as possible.
This is not a time for equivocation by anyone, in Israel or in the Diaspora. Any failure, any refusal to unequivocally condemn this abomination is moral cowardice bordering on complicity.
Menachem Z. Rosensaft is adjunct professor of law at Cornell Law School and lecturer-in-law at Columbia Law School. He is the author of the forthcoming Burning Psalms: Confronting Adonai after Auschwitz (Ben Yehuda Press, 2025).
