The noose has become Ben-Gvir's symbol in the pursuit of more power

Four years ago, few Swedes knew who he was. Since then, the name "Ben-Gvir" has become a red flag over the world. Israel's occupation policy and hardline personified, persona non grata in Australia, Canada, Norway, Spain and Ireland as well. To name just a few of the countries that have issued sanctions against Israel's security minister.

Itamar Ben-Gvir has forced arrested activists to kneel, he has advocated the death penalty by walking around with a pin shaped like a noose on his jacket, and he takes every chance he gets to walk around outside the al-Aqsa Mosque, against the express wishes of his own prime minister.

- I react with disgust to this terrible statement, said Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenegard (M) in August, after Ben-Gvir had said that Israel should "kill 30 or 40 people in Gaza every night".

She is neither the first nor the last foreign minister to react to the extreme minister. He who was considered far too extreme even by Israeli standards just a few years ago.

Itamar Ben-Gvir turned 50 in May and has been politically active since he was a teenager. The movement in which he began his career, Kach, was mainly known for its anti-Arab racism. From it was formed the far-right party Kahane Chai, which was branded a terrorist and banned in the mid-90s, after its leader had praised the Hebron massacre in which 29 Muslim worshipers were killed and 125 wounded in February 1994. The perpetrator of the massacre was the Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein.

Ben-Gvir, who grew up in the Israeli-occupied part of the Palestinian city of Hebron, long had a photograph of Goldstein hanging in his living room. Among other things, he has described Goldstein as "a hero, a righteous man and a doctor who during his life saved Jews".

How did a terrorist sympathizer get all the way into the Israeli government? Benjamin Netanyahu is a conservative right-wing politician, but Ben-Gvir is more extreme than Netanyahu in every conceivable way. Ahead of the 2022 elections, it seemed to most people unthinkable that Netanyahu could enter into a partnership with a political pariah like him.

He leads the Otzma Yehudit party, which means "Jewish power", but power only began to approach when the party became part of the party group "Religious Zionists" in the fall of 2022 after joining forces with two other far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties. Otherwise, Ben-Gvir probably would not have made it into the Knesset.

Now, however, he has split the party group and is still moving towards doubled support, on his own two feet.

- He is called the "Tiktok minister" because he is so big on Tiktok. His fans are young people who don't get information anywhere else but on Tiktok, says 19-year-old Ari, who works for the opposition party Together in central Jerusalem.

Ben-Gvir is mainly followed by young men. Every time he is out campaigning, hordes of youths wearing t-shirts with the print "RAK BNGVR", "bara Ben-Gvir" - a response to the opposition shirt print "FCK BNGVIR" - dance around him. They love his confrontational, provocative style. That he shows with action that he wants to "take back" the al-Aqsa mosque on what the Jews call the Temple Mount from the Muslims. That he brags about how Palestinian prisoners barely get food in the prisons since he came to power.

At a recent election meeting in Tel Aviv, he specifically counted Palestinian prisoners as one of his "victories" since coming to power. Another was the law he pushed through on the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorist crimes, and he also took credit for the fact that terrorist attacks against Israelis have decreased during his term.

However, he did not mention the Hamas terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, which also occurred during the same period.

- I admire that he is pushing Netanyahu from the soft right-wing politician he has been to having become a strong right-wing politician. If it wasn't for Ben-Gvir, I don't think we would have eliminated Nasrallah, Haniyeh or any of the other terrorists who have been killed during this war," Ben-Gvir supporter Gavriel told Haaretz at the rally.

Before the last election, the goal was to enter the Knesset. As a result of Benjamin Netanyahu not being able to take power without collaborating with the far right, Ben-Gvir also became a minister. For four years, he has pushed the country ever further to the right.

Now he has new goals. In the next government, Itamar Ben-Gvir demands to become defense minister.

Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected that request. But just over four years ago, he refused to cooperate with Ben-Gvir at all.