Sadly, he’s a dick who has power.
Palestinians celebrating terrorists and terrorism is how dicks like him get power.
Let’s just say that it’s a vicious cycle and leave it at that.
That’s because Ben Gvir is a populist, messianic, and racist warmonger. He certainly intends for it to comes across this way because he is an agitator.
Your phrasing is much better; getting Ben Gvir out of office and the sort of person who comprehends that in is key.
This, too.
Remember, this is the guy who pissed his pants, pulled his weapon, and squeaked like a chew toy when an Arabic security guard walked up to him in a parking structure. He is a joke of a human being (not a funny joke, a very depressing and offensive one) and among the biggest security threats to the country. Bibi is a criminal for many reasons, but putting Ben Gvir anywhere near power is high on that list.
Celebrating terrorists and terrorism is not realy something Ben Gvir has the high ground on. Lest we forget, in his youth Ben Gvir stole Rabin’s car’s decal and announced on TV that “if we can reach the car we can reach the man”, shortly before his buddy Yigal Amir murdered Rabin.
I never suggested he did. But history has shown that Israelis had been willing to elect left-wing peace governments…only to run back to the right wing when the Palestinians launch a new wave of attacks. It’s a “vicious cycle”, @Alessan only because one side won’t stop acting vicious, no matter how willing the other side is to end that “cycle”.
Make no mistake - taking a reasonable policy (no big street celebrations at a time when the West Bank is a powder keg) and phrasing it in such a way that it makes average Palestinians like the ones quoted in @Broomstick’s article feel like they are being targeted by Israel is the point.
Ben Gvir is just one of the many wedges driven into Israeli society by Netanyahu over the last few years, in an effort to divide and conquer. How does Bibi survive so many political crises when Likud is now an empty shell of its former self inhabited only by Bibi and a group of toadies selected not by their skill but by how low they will debase themselves for Bibi? How has he managed to scrape together a ruling coalition again and again?
The answer is, by sowing division in Israeli society. Ben Gvir and Smotrich are easily visible to you Americans on the outside, because they tap into divides you can understand - Religious vs Secular; Two State vs One; Settlements vs Withdrawl.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Did you know that in recent years Bibi has somehow become the icon of the Mizrahi community in Israel? Yes, the Mizrahi/Ashkenazi divide is alive and well in Israel (or was it brought back from the dead through unholy necromantic rituals to save Bibi from jail?), and Likud is riding roughshod over the left wing parties by convincing Mizrahi Israelis that the racist Ashkenazis on the Left will never understand the Mizrahi community and is in fact going to destroy Mizrahi culture.
Division between Israel and the Palestinians. Division between Gaza and the West Bank. Division between Orthodox and Secular Jewish Israelis. Division between Jewish Israelis and Israeli Arabs. Division between Mizrahi and Ashkenazi Israelis. And most of all, division between the Right and Left.
Bibi Netanyahu is a master of divide and conquer. Ben Gvir is but one of his many tools in this craft, which he uses to ruin Israel.
It is true that Israel has made some very sweet offers that were unceremoniously rejected, starting with 1948 where Israel would have happily accepted the partition plan and none of this would have been a problem if a bunch of neighboring countries didn’t decide to gamble double-or-nothing.
But it is also true that if you are Joe Gaza, 18 years old and raised on Hamas propaganda at a UNRWA school, seeing Ben Gvir go on TV and act like a caricature straight out of the Hamas propaganda from your high school curriculum is not helpful.
Looks like Day 5 of the ceasefire is on! Ten women are on their way back to Israel; no kids this time.
There are also reports of a number of hostages who are confirmed to be dead (Hamas may eventually negotiate to release their bodies in exchange for prisoners - although I hope Israel stops making that particular deal.)
It is estimated that Hamas still holds nine children, and 146 hostages total.
I imagine bodies for prisoners is worth it for their families.
Maybe so, but public policy should not be decided by grieving parents to ease their own pain.
To Gilad Shalit and his parents, his release may have been worth 1,027 prisoners, many of whom returned to terrorism and (before Oct 7) were directly responsible for at least half a dozen Israeli deaths in the years since. And after Oct 7… well, one of the prisoners released was Yahya Sinwar. Was that worth it?
I don’t believe deals should be made about hostages, either but people wanted their loved ones back. I do wish released terrorists (not kids who threw rocks at soldiers) could be injected upon release with something to infect other terrorists with whom they come in contact.
So…biological warfare combined with collective punishment (unless your magical disease will only infect terrorists)? Or are we using Magiver’s definition of Gazan = Hamas?
I’m thinking terrorists taking covid into the tunnels. It is of course immoral.
The problem with that statement is that to the 18-year-old Joe Gaza, Ehud Barak sounds no different from Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Even if we accept this statement as fact for the sake of argument, that’d be on them, not on us; using that as an excuse to actually become like Ben Gvir would be on us. (Just as supporting Hamas is on Hamas supporters, no matter how “oppressed” they or the useful idiots Hamas grooms in the West claim they are).
OK. But, if you are really on leave, is there really no option to secure your service weapon wherever you stashed your uniform and whatever else? Seems like it would be awkward swimming with it, dancing with it, or losing it in a restaurant bathroom.
Only American deputies lose firearms in a bath room.
When I was a kid in Rhodesia, my dad was in the army. We traveled with his FN next to my mum in the front seat; his Uzi next to the gear lever in our car. It was normal. We kids knew not to fuck with the guns, but they were everywhere, whether on duty or not.
War is fucking shit.
(Although it was really cool the one time he turned up in a Leopard mine-proof vehicle and gave my brother and I a short drive in it)
Sure, most people just keep them at home - I always did. But maybe the guy in the picture was on his way to or from his base, or maybe he didn’t have somewhere safe to put it, or maybe he just felt safer carrying it. Who knows?