Editorial: The man who celebrates cruelty

Hatred has entered the lexicon of international relations and the world remains painfully glacial to react to the horrific cruelty of the last three years of genocide in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces.

The liberal order that was once dubbed ‘the West’ stood immobile and placid as it allowed the continued sales of weapons to Israel, arming the genocide that took place after the heinous October 7 attacks; it dragged its feet in recognising the state of Palestine; and it did not lift a finger at the punitive force of the United States sanctions on the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese.

To this day, it shows just lily-livered reserve in the face of Israeli attacks in Lebanon and, recently, the illegal kidnapping, inhumane treatment and sexual abuse of the peaceful Sumud activists on the high seas.

Now, late in the day, global leaders have reacted to a video posted by Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, which sparked widespread condemnation and diplomatic backlash because it showed detained activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla, with their hands tied and foreheads on the ground as he taunted them, while security forces beat them up, kicked and punched them as they shouted ‘Welcome to Israel’.

It was only in the face of this latest of viral videos from one of the Netanyahu cabinet’s most vicious of creatures that some European countries started to summon Israeli ambassadors.

The UK summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires, while Italy’s foreign minister, Antonio Tajani, asked EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, to discuss sanctions on Ben-Gvir, “for the unacceptable acts committed against the flotilla, seizing the activists in international waters and subjecting them to harassment and humiliation, in violation of the most basic human rights”.

It was only in the face of this latest of viral videos from one of the Netanyahu cabinet’s most vicious of creatures that some European countries started to summon Israeli ambassadors

Poland’s foreign ministry said it wanted a ban on Ben-Gvir entering the country, who remains as yet outside the scope of International Criminal Court sanctions that have targeted Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant. He is the subject of travel bans from the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway, alongside far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, and sanctioned by the governments of Slovenia, Spain and the Netherlands.

The leader of the anti-Arab and far-right party Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), Ben-Gvir is a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank who, as a lawyer, is known for having defended Israelis accused of Jewish extremist terrorism in Israeli courts. His depravity, well documented in the international press, seems to know no limits: of note was his support of nine Israeli soldiers suspected of the forcible sodomy of a Palestinian prisoner – Ben-Gvir indeed condemned the actual prosecution of the soldiers. 

After recently passing an Israeli bill approving the death penalty by hanging for Palestinians in the West Bank convicted of terrorism, Ben-Gvir was celebrated on his birthday with a cake that had, as a decoration on it, a noose.

It is hard not to interpret the systemic dehumanisation of Palestinians through Israeli domestic policy as part of what increasingly seems to be celebrated as a culture of death, reaching its apex under the office of Netanyahu and the far-right menace of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.

Social media has shown us clearly the ugliest instincts of modern politics, when brazen provocation gets to be masqueraded as Israeli patriotism, with cruelty being constantly sold as strength and religious fanaticism becoming part and parcel of Israel’s foreign policy.

How can Israel claim security when it has empowered politicians who support genocide, who treat human dignity as expendable? It seems hard to imagine any possible road to peace when Israeli society and its establishment appear to celebrate the dark triumph of extremism over decency. That should horrify anyone who still believes politics ought to serve humanity.