Ben-Gvir’s Televised Abuse of Activists Sparks Global Outrage

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has made abuse of detained Palestinians a hallmark of his tenure, often documenting cruelty on video, according to rights groups and international criticism that escalated this week after he targeted foreign activists.

Since taking office, violence including rape, extreme hunger and humiliation have become normalized in Israeli prisons, with detention centers described as torture camps for Palestinians by human rights organizations.

Ben-Gvir has boasted of a prison revolution, telling lawmakers in 2024: ‘I am proud that we have changed all of the conditions.’ He has repeatedly shared footage of visits where he showcases or participates in abuse.

Those displays were largely ignored internationally until this week, when he extended the template of televised mistreatment to activists from 44 countries.

More than 400 men and women were intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters while attempting to sail to Gaza with aid supplies.

The next day, Ben-Gvir posted a video showing security forces abusing detainees, including footage of him waving an Israeli flag and taunting rows of activists forced to kneel with hands bound and foreheads to the ground.

Captioned ‘Welcome to Israel,’ the video prompted immediate condemnation from world leaders, including the prime ministers of Italy and Canada, European foreign ministers, and the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.

The scale of global outrage pushed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to issue a public rebuke. Ben-Gvir’s behavior was ‘not in line with Israel’s values and norms,’ Netanyahu said, although it fits the track record of his nearly four years in office.

‘Ben-Gvir’s video publicising the abuse of captured flotilla activists in Israeli detention should surprise no one – not if you’ve listened to Palestinians for even a fraction of a minute,’ Yara Hawari, co-director of Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, posted on social media.

Israeli data shows at least 98 Palestinians have died in custody since October 2023, including a 17-year-old probably killed by starvation. Israel’s Supreme Court has repeatedly ordered the government to end food deprivation.

Documented abuse includes assault and rape filmed on security cameras and reported to police by Israeli medics. Netanyahu described the alleged perpetrators as ‘heroic’ and a failed attempt to prosecute them as ‘criminal.’

The ‘harrowing and unjustifiable’ forms of abuse captured in Ben-Gvir’s video are routinely used against Palestinian prisoners in Israel, from stress positions to derogatory filming, said Tal Steiner, executive director of the Jerusalem-based human rights group HaMoked.

‘We welcome the international attention to [the abuse of activists] and to Ben-Gvir’s punitive policies generally but must not forget that this is what happens to Palestinians, as well as much worse forms of torture and abuse,’ Steiner added.

Netanyahu has never criticized extreme abuse of Palestinian detainees and denounced a recent New York Times investigation into rape of Palestinians, including in prisons, as a ‘blood libel’ and threatened to sue the newspaper.

His attempt to distance himself from Ben-Gvir’s video appeared designed to deflect global outrage by framing the abuse as an extremist aberration, said Guy Shalev, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights–Israel.

‘Crimes are framed as the actions of rogue settlers, abusive prison guards, or soldiers acting outside orders. Systematic violations are thus detached from policymakers and from the Israeli state itself,’ Shalev said.

‘Israel’s legitimacy remains intact, while performative condemnations allow the ‘international community’ to preserve its moral self-image without confronting the structural nature of the violence,’ he added.

Many countries responded by summoning Israeli ambassadors for formal dressing-downs. That measure is unlikely to worry Ben-Gvir, given his public feud with Foreign Minister Gideon Saar.

Saar described the video as a ‘disgraceful display’ that harmed the country. Ben-Gvir hit back by accusing Saar of being soft on ‘supporters of terror,’ adding that Israel had ‘stopped being a pushover.’

There have been international calls for sanctions against Ben-Gvir. Several countries including the UK, Canada and Australia targeted him last year, citing incitement to violence against Palestinians.

Since then, surging attacks in the occupied West Bank prompted former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to call for the International Criminal Court to intervene ‘to save the Palestinians and us [Israelis]’ from state-backed settler violence.

As Israel prepares for elections this autumn, many see Ben-Gvir’s video as early campaign material designed to appeal to far-right voters who share grim jokes on social media about illegal starvation rations for prisoners, calling them the ‘Ben-Gvir weight-loss plan.’

Racist rhetoric and actions from Ben-Gvir and other extremist politicians are likely to escalate as polling day approaches. Their more mainstream rivals rarely discuss Palestinian rights or the occupation of Palestine.

Israel’s closest allies and trading partners have political and financial leverage that can exert real pressure for change, rights groups note.

When Israeli soldiers vandalized a crucifix and desecrated a statue of the Virgin Mary in Lebanon, the international community mobilized. Four soldiers were jailed for several weeks, and Israel apologized.

State-sanctioned abuse of Palestinians has not produced equivalent demands for action. The EU, Israel’s biggest trading partner, has spent over a year considering proposals to suspend parts of its free trade agreement over violence in occupied Palestine, without progress.

‘It is deeply telling that strong international condemnations only came after Israeli officials publicly boasted about this abuse,’ said Suhad Bishara, legal director of Adalah, the rights group that represented the flotilla activists.

‘Statements are not enough: as long as Israel faces no concrete consequences for crossing one red line after another, abuses against Palestinians and international civilians alike will continue to escalate,’ Bishara added.