5/6/2024–|Last updated: 6/5/202401:51 PM (Mecca time)
Haaretz newspaper said that Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir is determined to escalate security tensions in the Middle East and is using every tool in his arsenal to provoke war on additional fronts, as if the existing fronts and the existing military and diplomatic challenges facing Israel were not enough.
Ben Gvir insists on holding the annual flag march in Jerusalem along its usual flammable route, through Damascus Gate in the Old City, and he is expected to participate in it himself with his activists to ensure that the desired provocations occur.
The newspaper said sarcastically – in its editorial – that this is exactly what Israel needs now: a festival of ugly Jewish bullying, in which hundreds of angry Jewish youth, most of whom are from the religious Zionist movement, seek to create provocations by chanting racist songs and slogans in the heart of the Old City, such as “Shuafat is burning,” “Death to the Arabs,” and “Let their village burn.”
“Our pyromaniac minister’s desire to provoke provocations is inexplicable,” according to the newspaper, which quotes him as saying in an interview with Army Radio: “We will walk through the Damascus Gate and go up the Temple Mount against their will. We have to hurt them where it matters most to them.” We must come and say that the Temple Mount is ours and Jerusalem is ours.”
However, the newspaper believes that the real problem does not lie with Ben Gvir, but rather with the person who legitimized the Kahanism and handed over the most sensitive ministry in the government to such a dangerous and incompetent person, namely Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who decided to leave Ben Gvir in this position. The sensitive position, giving him responsibility and authority over Israel’s internal security.
Ben Gvir: We will walk through the Damascus Gate and climb the Temple Mount against their will. We have to hurt them where it matters most to them, and we have to come and say that the Temple Mount is ours and Jerusalem is ours.
The newspaper also believed that nothing could atone for Netanyahu for the series of disasters he inflicted on Israel through his “flawed policies and poisonous leadership.” He could have ordered a change in the course of the march, but as usual, he “chose evil over good,” as it put it.
Haaretz reported that Ben Gvir is a dangerous man who was not supposed to be entrusted with any ministerial powers, let alone control over the police, and that hope remains placed on Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, who spoke publicly about the irresponsibility of the minister who reports to him, to order the police not to allow the thugs. Jews and arsonists started rioting and harming the city’s residents.