Israel’s international standing is being battered from both ends of its political spectrum. The far Right undermines it with reckless belligerence; the far Left corrodes it with moral preening.
It’s a story that could be written even before it unfolds.
On Tisha B’Av, the fast day marking the destruction of the two ancient Temples in Jerusalem, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir will go up to the Temple Mount. Once there, he will make some provocative statement that will be beamed worldwide. Shortly afterward, the Prime Minister’s Office will issue a statement walking it back.
On Sunday, that script — predictably — played itself out yet again. Ben-Gvir ascended the Temple Mount, led prayers there — in violation of the status quo that forbids public Jewish prayer — and said the following:
“I say this precisely from here – from the Temple Mount, where we’ve proven sovereignty is possible – that a clear message must be sent: The entire Gaza Strip must be conquered, sovereignty declared, every Hamas member taken down, and voluntary emigration promoted. Only then will we return the hostages and win the war.”
The furious reaction from Jordan and Saudi Arabia quickly followed. As did this clarification from the Prime Minister’s Office: “Israel’s policy of preserving the status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed, nor will it change.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (R) and Israel Prison Service Chief Kobi Yaakobi visit a prison where high-risk terrorists are held, January 8, 2025; illustrative. (credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
Another predictable part of the ritual followed as well: people asking themselves, or their friends, why Ben-Gvir doesn’t just keep quiet already, why Netanyahu doesn’t muzzle him, and whether they both don’t realize the damage these comments cause to Israel’s standing internationally.
Words that harm Israel’s image
Ben-Gvir is not the only far-right minister whose careless words irreparably harm Israel’s image. Just last week, Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, responding to an interviewer who noted Israel was racing toward a hostage deal, said that Israel was instead racing ahead “for Gaza to be wiped out.”
He added that all of Gaza will be Jewish, and that — unlike Israel’s prior settlements in Gush Katif — “there will not be settlements inside cantons, closed up behind a fence.”
At a time when Israel is facing a diplomatic backlash of the kind it has rarely experienced — when it is being accused of starving the Gazan population, committing ethnic cleansing and even genocide — statements like these are seized upon by the country’s harshest critics to validate their claims.
The harm is real and lasting. In the torrent of commentary last week from politicians and pundits trying to understand and explain the West’s growing hostility toward Israel — in the avalanche of countries announcing plans to recognize a Palestinian state and essentially reward Hamas — many pointed directly to statements like these.
Not just isolated comments by Ben-Gvir or Eliyahu, but a steady stream of similar remarks over recent months from figures like Bezalel Smotrich, Orit Struck, and others. So much so that some diplomatic officials are urging Netanyahu to freeze all Gaza-related media appearances by government ministers — whether to international or domestic outlets — because even a seemingly minor interview with an obscure local radio station can and will be translated, circulated, and weaponized abroad.
But here’s the rub: it’s not only the extreme Right that’s damaging Israel’s standing. Just look at the far Left. The international media is now running wild with an interview that author David Grossman gave to an Italian daily in which he described Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide.
In a Friday interview with La Repubblica, Grossman said he was leveling the genocide accusation with “intense pain and a broken heart.”
“For many years I refused to use this word,” he said. “But now, after the images I’ve seen, what I’ve read, and what I’ve heard from people who were there, I can’t help but use it.”
Do you think Eliyahu’s rhetoric was damaging? It pales in comparison to Grossman accusing Israel of genocide. As a celebrated author who lost his son in Lebanon, Grossman’s words carry tremendous moral weight abroad. If he says Israel is committing genocide, then who are La Repubblica’s readers — or anyone else — to argue?
Grossman’s defenders will say that it’s the statements from Eliyahu, Ben-Gvir, and Smotrich that are isolating Israel internationally. But so are Grossman’s. He may believe that by saying what he did, he’s presenting the moral, compassionate face of Israel. But many abroad will simply take his words and use them — deliberately and gleefully — to portray Israel as an irredeemable villain, as a perpetrator of genocide.
And Grossman is far from alone. Worried that Ben-Gvir is turning Israel into a pariah state? Consider this editorial last week by Yuli Novak, head of B’Tselem, published in the ever-hostile Guardian. The headline: “I lead a top Israeli human rights group. Our country is committing genocide.” That headline is an echo of a recent New York Times op-ed written by an Israeli academic who has taught in the US since 1989 — Omer Bartov — titled: “I am a genocide scholar. I know it when I see it.” His conclusion: Israel is committing genocide.
All this is to say nothing of the Ehud Olmerts and Moshe Ya’alons — the former accusing Israel of war crimes, the latter of ethnic cleansing. Their harsh words are picked up with enthusiasm by the international press, often stripped of context. Context, like Ya’alon’s personal grudge as a frustrated former defense minister pushed out by Netanyahu, or Olmert’s bitterness as a disgraced former prime minister who served 16 months in prison.
In May, Olmert wrote in Haaretz: “What we are doing in Gaza now is a war of devastation: indiscriminate, limitless, cruel and criminal killing of civilians. We’re not doing this due to loss of control in any specific sector, not due to some disproportionate outburst by some soldiers in some unit. Rather, it’s the result of government policy — knowingly, evilly, maliciously, irresponsibly dictated. Yes, Israel is committing war crimes.”
That op-ed has been cited and quoted repeatedly since its publication, used by critics as authoritative evidence to support the most vile charges being leveled against the Jewish state.
So what’s the point? The point is simple: Israel’s international standing is being battered from both ends of its political spectrum. The far Right undermines it with reckless belligerence; the far Left corrodes it with sanctimonious moral preening.
One declares that Gaza should be wiped out, the other accuses Israel of genocide. One shouts, the other indicts. Both hands of ammunition to those eager to delegitimize the country. Both feed the same narrative: that Israel is evil.
And left to pay the price and bear the consequences for these over-the-top and irresponsible remarks are the millions of Israelis in the middle — the vast majority — who are being defined in the eyes of the world by the rhetoric and portrayals of those on the country’s extremes.
