The grotesque spectacle of the Ben Gvir show

On the morning after the controversial death penalty law passed, millions of Israelis received a phone call from an unfamiliar number. On the other end of the line was Itamar Ben Gvir, the Minister of National Security and leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”) party. In a recorded message, he triumphantly proclaimed that his party had “kept its promise” to pass the law. Ben Gvir said that Otzma Yehudit was “proud to make the State of Israel safer, more moral and more just today”, adding that “most importantly, it is more deterrent to terrorists”, while many of those receiving the message were on their way into or out of shelters, on yet another morning when the air buzzed with missiles and drones from Iran and Hezbollah. He ended the message by urging listeners to “press 1 and join Otzma Yehudit”. It is official: the campaign for the 2026 Israeli elections has begun.

Many things can be said about Ben Gvir, but no one can ignore his ability to command constant attention. Every frame and detail is calculated: he and his team wear a pin resembling the yellow ribbon associated with the campaign for the release of Israeli hostages – a cause that he proudly sabotaged repeatedly – except that this pin is a noose-shaped. In defiance of the most basic standards of conduct, he attempted to pop open champagne in the Knesset chamber after the vote on the law, was rebuked by the Knesset Speaker and later moved his small party outside the hall, where he filmed the celebration for his popular TikTok account, second only to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s amongst Israeli politicians.

Ben Gvir’s social media presence is designed to project the image of an unapologetically militaristic thug. He is often filmed flanked by a pack of burly security guards, marching from place to place with an aura of urgency and entitlement (ideally in locations where he can confront Arab Israelis, or in prisons where he can taunt Palestinian terrorists and detainees). His champagne video, in which he declared that Otzma Yehudit had “made history” and promised that, very soon, “one by one, all those who massacred, burned and murdered” would be “executed”, serves this carefully cultivated nonconformist image well.

But this death penalty law, like his TikTok videos and noose pins, is yet another PR stunt aimed at the domestic crowd, skilfully disguising his epic failure as Minister of National Security. He could not care less about the loud international criticism, or about the fact that this hollow law is unlikely even to scratch a terrorist. i24NEWS reported that Israel’s Foreign Minister conveyed a message to European leaders that the law’s current wording leaves significant discretion to judges (who are part of a largely liberal-leaning judiciary) and may not survive review by Israel’s Supreme Court. It is more than just a “may”. It seems like Ben Gvir deliberately drafted a vague law that is not aligned with Israel’s Basic Laws, the country’s constitutional framework, and is unlikely to survive Supreme Court scrutiny. The death penalty law was born dead.

But all is fair in love and war, particularly when the war is over voters. To promote the law, Ben Gvir published graphic footage of victims of the 7 October massacre, causing fury and renewed trauma among their families, who were not even asked to consent to this kind of political PR. Despite his gleeful announcements, the law will not apply to the hundreds of arrested Nukhba Hamas terrorists who indeed raped, burned and murdered the young Nova festival-goers shown in the footage, because it cannot apply retroactively.

But hey, at least no one is talking now about his stinkingly poor record as Minister of National Security. When Ben Gvir marked three years in office in December 2025, KAN reported that his “achievements” included 730 murders (a 70% increase compared with the equivalent period), a continued rise in several categories of crime in 2025, and the deliberate concealment of official police crime statistics, including unlawful personal involvement in freedom of information requests.

A few years ago, it was hard to imagine Ben Gvir as a member of parliament, let alone a minister. His criminal record includes multiple convictions for offences such as support for a terrorist organisation, the radical far-right Jewish Kach movement, of which he was a member, and incitement to racism. The IDF even refused to enlist him when he turned 18 due to his extremism. But his relentless field activism and publicity on social media brought him enough fame to attract the attention of “the magician”, Netanyahu, who earned the nickname after decades of deft political manoeuvring.

For most of its history, even under Ben Gvir’s leadership, Otzma Yehudit failed to enter parliament. But during Israel’s 2019-2022 political crisis, when Netanyahu repeatedly struggled to form a coalition, it became clear that the votes going to Otzma Yehudit without carrying it over the electoral threshold were too costly for his right-wing bloc. In 2022, Netanyahu helped broker a union between Otzma Yehudit and another far-right party, Religious Zionism, at his home in Caesarea. The fact that the 2022 election came after the major outbreak of violence in May 2021, later dubbed by some, quite accurately, the “Unity Intifada”, pushed some Israeli Jews further to the right. During those days, beyond the Gaza front, thousands of Arab Israelis took part in violent riots, arson attacks and even attempted lynchings in mixed Arab-Jewish cities. That rightward shift echoed a similar political phenomenon in Israeli society after the Second Intifada.

Now whitewashed and standing at the Knesset podium, Ben Gvir can be satisfied. When the Supreme Court shreds the death penalty law, it will become an asset in his campaign against the “leftist” judiciary. It will also serve Netanyahu, who notably came to the Knesset to vote for the law even though it could have passed without him, by helping him argue that his coalition’s attempts to pursue judicial reform in 2023 – which led to an unprecedented public rift and mass protests against the overhaul – were not in vain.

But there is another cherry on top of Ben Gvir’s electoral campaign. Later this April, Israel’s High Court of Justice will hear petitions seeking his removal from office, on the grounds that he went beyond legitimate ministerial policymaking and systematically politicised police work, undermining police independence through improper involvement in policing decisions, senior appointments and sensitive investigations. Whatever the ruling, both Netanyahu and Ben Gvir stand to benefit politically, just ahead of the October 2026 elections. Ben Gvir will once again be able to portray himself as a fearless underdog hounded by “the elitist establishment”, rather than as a minister accountable for his record.