THE US has condemned Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for claiming his rights in the occupied West Bank are more important than those of Palestinians.
The State Department said it strongly condemned the “inflammatory comments” and “all racist rhetoric”.
His remarks on Israeli TV sparked a storm of criticism online.
Ben-Gvir has since called the coverage “fake news” and attacked the “radical left” for “misquoting” him.
On X, the platform previously known as Twitter, Ben-Gvir yesterday also launched a scathing attack on the Palestinian-American model Bella Hadid for reposting a clip of his comments, calling her an “Israel hater” who made him look “racist and dark”.
Hadid had reposted the video on Instagram where she has 60 million followers, adding the comment: “In no place, no time… should one life be more valuable than another’s.”
Ben-Gvir leads the ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit or “Jewish Power” party which espouses racist, anti-Arab policies. He has previous convictions for inciting racism and supporting terrorism.
In December he was made a top minister by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who gave him a seat in his security cabinet and put him in charge of the domestic police, as well as Israel’s militarised border police force that operates in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
His comments on Wednesday came amid spiralling violence in which Palestinian gunmen killed three Israelis in separate attacks, including one close to the West Bank city of Hebron, where Ben-Gvir lives in a Jewish settlement.
It led to even further restrictions on movement for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians as Israeli forces searched for the gunmen.
“My right, my wife’s, my children’s, to roam the roads of Judea and Samaria are more important than the right of movement of the Arabs,” said Ben-Gvir, using a biblical term for the West Bank.
He then addressed Mohammad Magadli, an Arab Israeli journalist in the studio, saying: “Sorry Mohammad, but this is the reality, that’s the truth. My right for life comes before their right to movement.”
A video clip of the comments went viral online and sparked a backlash, including from Palestinians and Israeli opposition figures.
The Palestinian Authority leadership condemned “in the strongest terms the racist and heinous remarks by Israel’s fascist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, which only confirms Israel’s apartheid regime of Jewish supremacy and racial terror against the Palestinian people”.
It called for Ben-Gvir and other Israeli officials to be “sanctioned and held accountable”.
Authentic
Karine Elharrar, an Israeli MP in the opposition Yesh Atid party, described the minister as “the authentic representative of the most racist, messianic and Kahanist government we’ve ever had”.
Ben-Gvir’s political background lies in Kahanism – a violently racist movement that supports the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands.
Pressed by Israeli journalists for a response, a US State Department spokesman on Thursday night said: “We strongly condemn Israeli minister Ben-Gvir’s inflammatory comments on the freedom of movement of Palestinian residents in the West Bank.”
“We condemn all racist rhetoric; as such messages are particularly damaging when amplified by those in leadership positions and are incongruent with advancing respect for human rights for all.”
Later yesterday, the EU also “strongly condemned” Ben-Gvir’s comments, saying “the values of democracy and respect for human rights stand central to the EU-Israel partnership, including as regards the people living under occupation in the Palestinian territory”.
Palestinians in the West Bank already endure severe restrictions on the right to movement, including being unable without permits to freely travel to Jerusalem or their ancestral lands inside Israel. The Israeli authorities say this is done for security reasons.
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