Latest news with #ReligiousZionism
Asharq Al-Awsat
4 days ago
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israeli Finance Minister Says Banks Should Not Obey EU Sanctions on Settlers
Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday condemned the country's banks that have refused to provide services to Israeli settlers sanctioned by the European Union and warned they may have to pay compensation to them. The EU last year imposed sanctions on five Israeli settlers for violence against Palestinians and Smotrich said there were reports of sanctions being considered against other settlers. But in a letter to the banking supervisor, he said Israeli banks should not follow a "zero risk" policy since it leads to the abandonment of Israeli clients "under the guise of compliance with foreign sanctions." In a statement quoting his letter to the regulator, Smotrich called on banks to use their legal, economic, and international strength to fight "unjust sanctions", Reuters reported. "The banks' enormous profits enable them to take measured risks on behalf of their clients — especially when it comes to a national moral injustice," Smotrich, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism party, said. Should banks continue to comply with sanctions and harm clients, Smotrich said he intended to promote immediate legislation that would require banks to pay substantial compensation to affected customers. He also intends to require the Bank of Israel itself to offer banking services to citizens targeted by sanctions. Responding to the letter, the Bank of Israel said that while banks must comply with international sanctions to avoid an array of risks, a draft directive it published on Thursday aimed to ensure appropriate banking services were available for the affected customers. "Circumventing foreign sanctions regimes through the Israeli banking system exposes banking corporations to multiple risks, including compliance risks, anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing risks, legal risks, and reputational risks," the central bank said. But it said it has taken steps to comply with sanctions "without banks resorting to blanket refusals to serve such customers." While the sanctions in question concern Israeli settlers, the EU is reviewing its broad pact governing its political and economic ties with Israel in the face of mounting international pressure on Israel amid complaints about the lack of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza in the wake of the war triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
Reuters
4 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Israeli Finance Minister says banks should not obey EU sanctions on settlers
JERUSALEM, June 5 (Reuters) - Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday condemned the country's banks that have refused to provide services to Israeli settlers sanctioned by the European Union and warned they may have to pay compensation to them. The EU last year imposed sanctions on five Israeli settlers for violence against Palestinians and Smotrich said there were reports of sanctions being considered against other settlers. But in a letter to the banking supervisor, he said Israeli banks should not follow a "zero risk" policy since it leads to the abandonment of Israeli clients "under the guise of compliance with foreign sanctions." In a statement quoting his letter to the regulator, Smotrich called on banks to use their legal, economic, and international strength to fight "unjust sanctions". "The banks' enormous profits enable them to take measured risks on behalf of their clients — especially when it comes to a national moral injustice," Smotrich, who leads the far-right Religious Zionism party, said. Should banks continue to comply with sanctions and harm clients, Smotrich said he intended to promote immediate legislation that would require banks to pay substantial compensation to affected customers. He also intends to require the Bank of Israel itself to offer banking services to citizens targeted by sanctions. Responding to the letter, the Bank of Israel said that while banks must comply with international sanctions to avoid an array of risks, a draft directive it published on Thursday aimed to ensure appropriate banking services were available for the affected customers. "Circumventing foreign sanctions regimes through the Israeli banking system exposes banking corporations to multiple risks, including compliance risks, anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing risks, legal risks, and reputational risks," the central bank said. But it said it has taken steps to comply with sanctions "without banks resorting to blanket refusals to serve such customers." While the sanctions in question concern Israeli settlers, the EU is reviewing its broad pact governing its political and economic ties with Israel in the face of mounting international pressure on Israel amid complaints about the lack of humanitarian aid reaching Gaza in the wake of the war triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 attack.
Middle East Eye
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Middle East Eye
Why the Israeli left's 'peace summit' is in denial about the Gaza genocide
On 8 and 9 May, a so-called "People's Peace Summit", titled "The Time Has Come", took place at Binyanei HaUma convention centre in Jerusalem. Sixty Israeli organisations gathered under the banner of peace, claiming to prepare the ground for a political resolution to the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict". The summit featured tours, workshops, film screenings, performances, and - on the second day - keynote speeches promoting what organisers described as a "peace-based worldview". According to its website, the summit aimed to promote "dialogue" between Palestinians and Israelis, in hopes of sparking societal change and inspiring belief that after each war, a political process would follow. "The time has come," the organisers declared. "Now, when it burns and hurts, after long years of fear and violence, of struggle, of occupation and terror. The war that erupted on 7 October must and can be the last war - the one after which peace will come." New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters But this vision relies on a dangerous abstraction - one that ignores the reality of what is happening in Gaza. The language of peace and dialogue is being used to mask complicity, deflect accountability, and delay action. Peace performance Despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza, this marked the second consecutive year the "People's Peace Summit" took place under the same slogans and with the same speakers. Aside from minor adjustments to the schedule, little had changed. What is happening in Gaza demands explicit political statements and mass mobilisation - not vague appeals centred on Israeli captives If one wonders how the Israeli public can remain silent in the face of what is unfolding in Gaza, the answer lies in a basic, grim truth: a significant portion of the population embraces extreme right-wing, messianic ideologies. These beliefs, rooted in a religious-nationalist vision, have increasingly shaped Israeli politics, particularly through parties like Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit. A March 2025 poll conducted by Israel's Direct Polls Institute found that nearly 60 percent of Israelis supported resuming military attacks on Gaza - despite mounting international condemnation and the catastrophic humanitarian toll. At the same time, many of those who consider themselves liberal or humanitarian continue to avoid making an unequivocal call to end the genocide in Gaza. Their silence reflects not just hesitation, but complicity. Israeli peace organisations continue to do everything but confront the elephant in the room. This is not a war - it is a genocide. And calling simply for an end to "the war" is not only useless, but evasive. What is happening in Gaza demands explicit political statements and mass mobilisation - not vague appeals centred on Israeli captives or Jewish national security, but because infants and children are dying as the world watches. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of the Israel-Palestine war While artists stand on stage to sing, dozens more will likely be starved or killed. On Wednesday alone, Israeli air strikes killed more than 100 Palestinians across Gaza, including in a crowded marketplace and a restaurant in Nuseirat refugee camp. Among the dead were women, children, and two journalists, as Israel escalated its assault in a genocidal war now entering its 20th month. There is no time - and no purpose - for abstract conversations about future peace processes while genocide is ongoing. By the time the so-called "day after" arrives, the damage will be so vast, with consequences spanning generations, that the very notion of a political resolution or peace will be rendered meaningless. Genocide denial What is happening in Gaza has been visible from the start. No person with internet access and a functioning conscience can deny it. The only thing missing is the will to name it. Viewed in this light, the summit's refusal to use the word "genocide" - despite the affirmation of international genocide scholars - speaks volumes. I once lived next to a Holocaust survivor. What would he make of Israel's starvation of Gaza? Read More » So too does its silence on Israel's use of starvation as a weapon of war, and its failure to address the Jewish-Israeli public about what is being done in their name and with their participation. The absence of any serious critique of the military's actions raises a fundamental question about the summit's motives: do the organisers truly believe that any means are justified if the alleged goal is to topple Hamas? Even more surreal is the map the summit organisers published: "The Map of Peace and Love - Israel/Palestine 2040". At first glance, it looked like satire, but it wasn't. In this imagined landscape between the river and the sea, nearly every place name is Jewish or a slogan. The only Arab reference is a central spot named after Lebanese writer Elias Khoury. Arab identities appear only in the context of coexistence with Jews in Jordan and Egypt. This is not a vision of shared life - it is a colonial fantasy that imagines Israeli expansion beyond the river and the sea, into neighbouring territories. Privileged distractions Journalist Orly Noy, chair of B'Tselem, criticised the peace summit for offering what she described as "privileged distractions" - dialogue workshops, interfaith prayers, and future-oriented panels - while Gaza burns. She noted that not a single panel was dedicated to the ongoing genocide, and argued that the summit was designed to "make Israelis feel better about themselves" without demanding they confront what is being done in their name. One of the organisers, Raluca Ganea, responded in Haaretz by accusing Noy of aiding Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's agenda through divisiveness. She insisted that political institutions emerge after wars to build diplomatic solutions, and that energy should be directed toward shaping what comes next. But framing critique as sabotage is not only evasive, it reinforces the very silence Noy was condemning. At a time when there has been no large-scale public call for draft refusal or an end to the genocide, dismissing internal criticism further serves to protect national consensus rather than challenge it. What's more, Ganea is wrong on the facts: genocide typically does not conclude with diplomacy but erasure - just like the Palestinians in Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, and elsewhere, who were ethnically cleansed in 1948. To this day, Israel refuses to allow them to return, and both the Israeli right and left continue to oppose the right of return. Beyond 'dialogue' There is no space to discuss the "day after". No place for talk about peace or a political solution. The catastrophe in Gaza will be remembered as one of the darkest chapters in modern history. The Israeli left will be remembered as those who stood by and did the bare minimum to acknowledge the horrors taking place For their role, the Israeli left will be remembered as those who stood by and did the bare minimum to acknowledge the horrors taking place. When challenged, they adopted right-wing rhetoric and aligned themselves with the national consensus, thereby enabling the continued starvation of children. The summit makes clear why there is no room left for dialogue with the Israeli left. After 20 months of genocide, something fundamental has shifted in what it means to be Palestinian. Any cooperation now serves only to reassure the Israeli left - to sustain the comforting illusion that, despite everything, there are still Palestinians willing to talk, negotiate, and feed hope. But while children, women, and men are being starved and bombed in refugee camps, there is no place for shallow hope-talk. The only legitimate political discourse now is a demand to end the genocide, grounded in the belief that justice can still prevail. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Ben-Gvir Can't Bring Himself to Pretend
On Wednesday night, as the guest at a banquet in New Haven, Connecticut, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made light of his waistline—a rare joke from a man whose utterances are more often vile than funny. Even so, he managed to blend the two. He said that when he assumed office in 2022, he took steps to make the food served to Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons less abundant and less palatable. 'They were eating like this,' he said, gesturing at the feast his American hosts had laid out. He put an end to that, in addition to imposing other discomforts. Now, he says, his wife eyes his torso (softly rounded, like an overripe pear) and tells him he should consider a couple of weeks as an inmate himself. Many would like to see Ben-Gvir in prison for reasons other than dietary. He is the most right-wing and, by some measures, the most unpopular member of the Israeli cabinet—an embodiment of the fear among secular liberals that the country's present and future belong to religious zealots who would rather brutalize Arabs than make peace with them. At every stage in his career, Ben-Gvir has favored Israeli expansion into land inhabited by Arabs, and he has favored the use of force to defend that expansion. He has, at various times, brandished weapons at Arabs and lionized Jewish terrorists, including Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Arabs as they prayed in Hebron in 1994. The government led by Benjamin Netanyahu needs the support of Ben-Gvir's party, Otzma Yehudit, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party to avoid falling apart. And that means that every time Ben-Gvir speaks—which he does often, and provocatively—he inspires fury and dread among those who think neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a future as long as Ben-Gvir can veto any measure that might lead to peace. [Read: Why the most hated man in Israel might stay in power] Ben-Gvir doesn't travel often internationally, perhaps because the only place where he is more unpopular than within Israel is outside it. He was received at JFK airport by Israeli hecklers and quickly proceeded to Florida. There he toured the state's most enchanting sites: Mar-a-Lago, a Russian-owned gun shop, and a maximum-security prison in the Everglades. In New Haven, he said he supported President Donald Trump's plan to clear out Gaza and develop it. He said Israel had much to learn from America and singled out the willingness to kill murderers as an attractive and enlightened American innovation. (Israel abolished the death penalty in 1954.) Ben-Gvir came to New Haven to address a gathering of Shabtai, a Jewish society whose members and guests are mostly Yale students and faculty. Yesterday's Yale Daily News said the event was off the record, but no one asked any such condition of me, and in any case the event could not have been off the record, because it was was being recorded openly by the hosts and by Ben-Gvir's people, and Ben-Gvir himself exhorted those present to tell others what he said. He sat down about six feet from me, and I passed the table's bottle of mineral water so he could fill his glass. My gesture was rebuffed: sealed bottles only, please. Ben-Gvir has reportedly faced multiple assassination plots, including one last year that involved a rocket-propelled grenade. Death by San Pellegrino seemed improbable, but I cannot begrudge him his caution. Ben-Gvir gave a stump speech—a story of a political awakening, told so as to cause a similar awakening in his audience. Born in 1976, he grew up in a secular family, then embraced religion with unusual fervor. That fervor was reactionary from the start, a result of his outrage at the First Intifada and the alleged softness of Israel's government when it consented to the creation and recognition of the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords. Ben-Gvir had to pass through a gantlet of protesters to get in the building, and when he described his own raucous youth we could hear the protesters still thumping buckets and playing their vuvuzelas outside. I thought I detected a subtle smile. He has heard worse. He has been worse. In the 1990s, he said, he was arrested so many times that judges shifted from stern to paternalistic. Eventually one told him he should stop being a defendant and start being a lawyer. That judge, Ben-Gvir said, was Aharon Barak, the most distinguished living Israeli jurist and the architect of the legal system that Netanyahu's government has been trying to dismantle, with Ben-Gvir's enthusiastic support. Ben-Gvir took Barak's advice and became a lawyer. 'Every lawyer should spend some time in prison,' he said. He built a career defending other right-wing extremists accused of terrorism, arson, and other attacks. He mentioned repeatedly that he lives in Hebron, but never quite made clear to what extent his own extremism had led him to settle there, and to what extent living in the West Bank's most contested city has made him extreme. The city, which is the burial site of the Jewish (and Christian and Muslim) prophet Abraham, is a rancorous labyrinth that carefully separates Jews and Arabs because when they mix, the results are unpredictable and often violent. It is therefore hellish for everyone. But the restrictions that mattered to him pertain only to Jews. 'I can move freely around only 3 percent of Hebron,' he told the group. 'An Arab can move around 97 percent of Hebron.' That, he said, is real 'apartheid.' (Israelis are forbidden by military order from entering most of Hebron, because it is under control of the Palestinian Authority. But the presence of checkpoints and other restrictions sharply circumscribes the lives of Palestinians, even in areas they nominally control.) On Gaza, Ben-Gvir claimed credit for foresight, and said he had advocated assassinating Hamas leaders even before October 7. After October 7, he became less sentimental. He said Israel's war in Gaza had been too meek. When asked whether there was any proper limit to the violence that could be inflicted there, he said vaguely that he preferred not to kill children. His obsession with the caloric intake of Palestinians—a running theme of his remarks—came up several more times, as he called for Israel to 'bomb their food supply.' The wall behind Ben-Gvir at Shabtai's headquarters had been covered with images of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. Some of the hostages are now dead, and others were released malnourished. 'If the hostages do not eat, neither will Hamas,' he said. Attendees pressed him on this point, and one said that seeing the images of gaunt Holocaust survivors made him particularly uncomfortable at the prospect of withholding food from civilians in war. An older attendee remarked that he had known actual ex-Nazis, and that the postwar friendship between America and former Axis powers suggested that Israel should find friends among Palestinians, rather than treat them all as permanent enemies. Ben-Gvir called concerns like these 'naive,' and rather than distinguish Palestinian civilians from terrorists, he conflated them. He said the revelry after October 7, and the participation of ordinary people in the looting and violence, demonstrated that the distinction between the leadership of Hamas and ordinary Palestinians was illusory. He rejected any comparison between starving Jews after the Holocaust and starving Palestinians, and said that 'the Jews did not rape anyone; the Jews did not kill anyone.' [Photos: Gaza on the brink of famine] The most direct question came from an attendee who wanted to know about Ben-Gvir's attitude toward Baruch Goldstein. In 1995, when he was 18 years old, Ben-Gvir described Goldstein as his 'hero' and dressed up as Goldstein for Purim. Until recently, Ben-Gvir displayed a portrait of Goldstein prominently in his living room. He removed it in 2020, only after the center-right politician Naftali Bennett said that no politician would be welcome in his Knesset coalition who chose to decorate his home with Goldstein's likeness. 'For the sake of unity and a right-wing victory in the elections, I'm removing the photograph in my living room,' Ben-Gvir wrote on Facebook. In New Haven, he took a softer line for a more skeptical crowd. 'People change,' he said. 'I oppose what Goldstein did.' He framed his transformation as moral, and said he was not who he was when he was 17. Getting married and having six kids mellows a man out, he said. His whole answer took no more than a couple of minutes. I told Ben-Gvir that I found his contrition perfunctory and unconvincing, and I challenged him, if he was sincere, to prove it. I asked him to tell us all what it was like to idolize a murderer—and then to tell us what he would say to his younger self, or someone still in the thrall of a terrorist, to persuade him to give up violence and mellow out sooner rather than later. He couldn't even bring himself to pretend. He just asserted that he had changed. 'I'm sure you did things when you were 17 that you are not proud of,' he said. (He removed the portrait when he was 44.) And he said again that time and family make a difference—but he added not a word about the inherent value of human life, or the disgrace brought upon religion and country by someone who massacres civilians, especially in a moment of total vulnerability. The evening ended soon after, and when Ben-Gvir left the building, he reentered his milieu: a crowd of protesters, angry and loud. In the photos of his exit, he is flanked by security but unmistakably comfortable with the hullabaloo, even relishing it. He seemed more ready to confront a baying mob than to answer simple moral questions. The photos of him during this confrontation show him signing V for Victory, and looking happier and more energized than he'd looked inside. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
What Ben-Gvir Considers ‘Naive'
On Wednesday night, as the guest at a banquet in New Haven, Connecticut, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made light of his waistline—a rare joke from a man whose utterances are more often vile than funny. Even so, he managed to blend the two. He said that when he assumed office in 2022, he took steps to make the food served to Palestinian inmates in Israeli prisons less abundant and less palatable. 'They were eating like this,' he said, gesturing at the feast his American hosts had laid out. He put an end to that, in addition to imposing other discomforts. Now, he says, his wife eyes his torso (softly rounded, like an overripe pear) and tells him he should consider a couple of weeks as an inmate himself. Many would like to see Ben-Gvir in prison for reasons other than dietary. He is the most right-wing and, by some measures, the most unpopular member of the Israeli cabinet—an embodiment of the fear among secular liberals that the country's present and future belong to religious zealots who would rather brutalize Arabs than make peace with them. At every stage in his career, Ben-Gvir has favored Israeli expansion into land inhabited by Arabs, and he has favored the use of force to defend that expansion. He has, at various times, brandished weapons at Arabs and lionized Jewish terrorists, including Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Arabs as they prayed in Hebron in 1994. The government led by Benjamin Netanyahu needs the support of Ben-Gvir's party, Otzma Yehudit, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's Religious Zionism party to avoid falling apart. And that means that every time Ben-Gvir speaks—which he does often, and provocatively—he inspires fury and dread among those who think neither Israelis nor Palestinians have a future as long as Ben-Gvir can veto any measure that might lead to peace. Ben-Gvir doesn't travel often internationally, perhaps because the only place where he is more unpopular than within Israel is outside it. He was received at JFK airport by Israeli hecklers and quickly proceeded to Florida. There he toured the state's most enchanting sites: Mar-a-Lago, a Russian-owned gun shop, and a maximum-security prison in the Everglades. In New Haven, he said he supported President Donald Trump's plan to clear out Gaza and develop it. He said Israel had much to learn from America and singled out the willingness to kill murderers as an attractive and enlightened American innovation. (Israel abolished the death penalty in 1954.) Ben-Gvir came to New Haven to address a gathering of Shabtai, a Jewish society whose members and guests are mostly Yale students and faculty. Yesterday's Yale Daily News said the event was off the record, but no one asked any such condition of me, and in any case the event could not have been off the record, because it was was being recorded openly by the hosts and by Ben-Gvir's people, and Ben-Gvir himself exhorted those present to tell others what he said. He sat down about six feet from me, and I passed the table's bottle of mineral water so he could fill his glass. My gesture was rebuffed: sealed bottles only, please. Ben-Gvir has reportedly faced multiple assassination plots, including one last year that involved a rocket-propelled grenade. Death by San Pellegrino seemed improbable, but I cannot begrudge him his caution. Ben-Gvir gave a stump speech—a story of a political awakening, told so as to cause a similar awakening in his audience. Born in 1976, he grew up in a secular family, then embraced religion with unusual fervor. That fervor was reactionary from the start, a result of his outrage at the First Intifada and the alleged softness of Israel's government when it consented to the creation and recognition of the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Accords. Ben-Gvir had to pass through a gantlet of protesters to get in the building, and when he described his own raucous youth we could hear the protesters still thumping buckets and playing their vuvuzelas outside. I thought I detected a subtle smile. He has heard worse. He has been worse. In the 1990s, he said, he was arrested so many times that judges shifted from stern to paternalistic. Eventually one told him he should stop being a defendant and start being a lawyer. That judge, Ben-Gvir said, was Aharon Barak, the most distinguished living Israeli jurist and the architect of the legal system that Netanyahu's government has been trying to dismantle, with Ben-Gvir's enthusiastic support. Ben-Gvir took Barak's advice and became a lawyer. 'Every lawyer should spend some time in prison,' he said. He built a career defending other right-wing extremists accused of terrorism, arson, and other attacks. He mentioned repeatedly that he lives in Hebron, but never quite made clear to what extent his own extremism had led him to settle there, and to what extent living in the West Bank's most contested city has made him extreme. The city, which is the burial site of the Jewish (and Christian and Muslim) prophet Abraham, is a rancorous labyrinth that carefully separates Jews and Arabs because when they mix, the results are unpredictable and often violent. It is therefore hellish for everyone. But the restrictions that mattered to him pertain only to Jews. 'I can move freely around only 3 percent of Hebron,' he told the group. 'An Arab can move around 97 percent of Hebron.' That, he said, is real 'apartheid.' (Israelis are forbidden by military order from entering most of Hebron, because it is under control of the Palestinian Authority. But the presence of checkpoints and other restrictions sharply circumscribes the lives of Palestinians, even in areas they nominally control.) On Gaza, Ben-Gvir claimed credit for foresight, and said he had advocated assassinating Hamas leaders even before October 7. After October 7, he became less sentimental. He said Israel's war in Gaza had been too meek. When asked whether there was any proper limit to the violence that could be inflicted there, he said vaguely that he preferred not to kill children. His obsession with the caloric intake of Palestinians—a running theme of his remarks—came up several more times, as he called for Israel to 'bomb their food supply.' The wall behind Ben-Gvir at Shabtai's headquarters had been covered with images of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. Some of the hostages are now dead, and others were released malnourished. 'If the hostages do not eat, neither will Hamas,' he said. Attendees pressed him on this point, and one said that seeing the images of gaunt Holocaust survivors made him particularly uncomfortable at the prospect of withholding food from civilians in war. An older attendee remarked that he had known actual ex-Nazis, and that the postwar friendship between America and former Axis powers suggested that Israel should find friends among Palestinians, rather than treat them all as permanent enemies. Ben-Gvir called concerns like these 'naive,' and rather than distinguish Palestinian civilians from terrorists, he conflated them. He said the revelry after October 7, and the participation of ordinary people in the looting and violence, demonstrated that the distinction between the leadership of Hamas and ordinary Palestinians was illusory. He rejected any comparison between starving Jews after the Holocaust and starving Palestinians, and said that 'the Jews did not rape anyone; the Jews did not kill anyone.' Photos: Gaza on the brink of famine The most direct question came from an attendee who wanted to know about Ben-Gvir's attitude toward Baruch Goldstein. In 1995, when he was 18 years old, Ben-Gvir described Goldstein as his ' hero ' and dressed up as Goldstein for Purim. Until recently, Ben-Gvir displayed a portrait of Goldstein prominently in his living room. He removed it in 2020, only after the center-right politician Naftali Bennett said that no politician would be welcome in his Knesset coalition who chose to decorate his home with Goldstein's likeness. 'For the sake of unity and a right-wing victory in the elections, I'm removing the photograph in my living room,' Ben-Gvir wrote on Facebook. In New Haven, he took a softer line for a more skeptical crowd. 'People change,' he said. 'I oppose what Goldstein did.' He framed his transformation as moral, and said he was not who he was when he was 17. Getting married and having six kids mellows a man out, he said. His whole answer took no more than a couple of minutes. I told Ben-Gvir that I found his contrition perfunctory and unconvincing, and I challenged him, if he was sincere, to prove it. I asked him to tell us all what it was like to idolize a murderer—and then to tell us what he would say to his younger self, or someone still in the thrall of a terrorist, to persuade him to give up violence and mellow out sooner rather than later. He couldn't even bring himself to pretend. He just asserted that he had changed. 'I'm sure you did things when you were 17 that you are not proud of,' he said. (He removed the portrait when he was 44.) And he said again that time and family make a difference—but he added not a word about the inherent value of human life, or the disgrace brought upon religion and country by someone who massacres civilians, especially in a moment of total vulnerability. The evening ended soon after, and when Ben-Gvir left the building, he reentered his milieu: a crowd of protesters, angry and loud. In the photos of his exit, he is flanked by security but unmistakably comfortable with the hullabaloo, even relishing it. He seemed more ready to confront a baying mob than to answer simple moral questions. The photos of him during this confrontation show him signing V for Victory, and looking happier and more energized than he'd looked inside.
