Comment by flyinglizard
3 days ago
It is bad faith to use Ben Gvir as a representative for Israel, let alone Israelis. He received less than 5% of the votes for parliament and only got to his ministerial position due to the extortive nature of the Israeli political system. This is a guy who was incarcerated and barred from holding any kind of position for a very long time.
You could use many other moderate Israeli politicians, but you chose to bring the one who 95% of the Israeli electorate will not vote for.
Ben Gvir is the minister of national security and has been for years. He literally is a representative of Israel. He may not represent the views of Israelis, but he is in power, and is using that power. That makes him a relevant example, as relevant as the day is long.
Ben Gvir is the minister responsible for domestic security (primarily police, firefighters etc), with no effect (beyond his position in the coalition) on the warfare policy in Lebanon or Gaza. He's not even responsible for Shin Bet (that's the Prime Minster). So while he can spew that rhetoric for his voter base, he can not take any action affecting how the war is conducted. Therefore whatever he said may be used to attest on the man and possibly his voters, but that's not the voice of the Government of Israel nor is it representative of the Israeli public.
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>Itamar Ben-Gvir is an Israeli politician and lawyer who has served as the minister of national security since 2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itamar_Ben-Gvir
How is a member of the Israeli government not considered to be a representative of the government of Israel? It's tautologically true that he represents Israel. And yes indeed many of his opinions do represent a huge portion of Israeli public opinion.
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