Itamar Ben-Gvir is an Israeli lawyer and far-right politician who has served as the Minister of National Security since 2022. He is a member of the Knesset and leader of Otzma Yehudit.
Ben-Gvir, a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has faced charges of hate speech against Arabs and was known to have a portrait in his living room of Israeli-American mass murderer and Jewish extremist Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in Hebron, in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. He removed the portrait after he entered politics. He was also previously convicted of supporting a terrorist group known as Kach, which espoused Kahanism, an extremist religious Zionist ideology.
Under his leadership, the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), a party which espouses Kahanism and anti-Arabism, won six seats in the 2022 Israeli legislative election, and is represented in what has been called the most right-wing and hardline government in Israel's history. He has called for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are not loyal to Israel. Ben Gvir is "widely known for his openly racist, anti-Arab views and activities". Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz has said Ben Gvir represents "Jewish fascism".
Ben Gvir had been long accused of being a provocateur, having previously led several visits to the Temple Mount as activist and member of Knesset, contentious marches through Jerusalem's Old City Muslim Quarter, and set up an office in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood which witnessed several evictions of Palestinians. 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. As a lawyer, he is known for defending Jewish terrorists on trial in Israel.
