Photo illustration – Israel must choose between the far right’s road to endless war and a future built on Palestinian dignity, regional acceptance and peaceful coexistence.
Netanyahu’s coalition depends upon extremists who oppose the Gaza ceasefire, advocate Palestinian displacement and possess an effective veto over peace.
By: Ya Libnan Editorial Board, Opinion
Israel cannot demand recognition, security and peaceful coexistence while senior members of its government openly advocate killing dozens of Palestinians every night.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir recently declared that Israel should conduct “targeted assassinations” in Gaza, killing 30 or 40 people nightly. He advocated these killings even during periods of relative calm, establishing a predetermined body count rather than identifying an immediate military threat.
Ben-Gvir reportedly added that some people in Gaza “shouldn’t live” and are “not even people.” He also called for Israeli settlement throughout Gaza and the departure of as many Palestinians as possible. The Associated Press reported his remarks.
These are not the words of a responsible government minister confronting an immediate security threat. They are the language of dehumanization, collective punishment and permanent warfare.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called the remarks “intolerable and inhumane.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned them as unacceptable and contrary to international law. The United Nations described them as appalling, outrageous, dehumanizing and dangerous.
All three are right.
There is supposed to be a ceasefire in Gaza. The war is supposed to be ending. President Trump’s envoys are working on arrangements for what comes afterward. At precisely this moment, an Israeli cabinet minister is demanding nightly killings, Palestinian displacement and renewed Israeli settlement of Gaza.
How can diplomacy succeed while one of the participants is openly sabotaging its purpose?
Israel has the right to security—but not to vengeance
The atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 were real and indefensible. Israel has every right to protect its population, recover its hostages and prevent another attack.
But self-defense has legal and moral boundaries. It does not authorize killing predetermined numbers of people every night. It does not permit executions of individuals who pose no immediate threat. And it certainly does not allow a government minister to decide that an entire category of human beings is unworthy of life.
A legitimate targeted military operation begins with an identified threat, verified intelligence and military necessity. Ben-Gvir begins with a daily body count.
That is not security. It is vengeance converted into government policy.
The Israeli far right appears to believe that Israel can achieve permanent security through overwhelming force, indefinite occupation, settlement expansion and Palestinian displacement. History should have taught it otherwise.
A country cannot bomb its way into acceptance by its neighbors. It cannot humiliate millions of people and expect the resulting anger to disappear. Every innocent person killed leaves grieving families, deepens hatred and potentially recruits another generation into extremism.
The extremists are endangering Israel
Ben-Gvir presents himself as Israel’s defender. In reality, his ideology may become one of the greatest threats to Israel’s future.
His statements isolate Israel from the very governments whose diplomatic, economic and military relationships it needs. They weaken moderate Arab leaders who support coexistence. They hand extremists across the region their most effective propaganda. And they make every Israeli peace initiative appear insincere.
Most dangerously, such rhetoric tells the Arab and Muslim worlds that Israel does not merely oppose Hamas—it rejects Palestinian humanity itself.
That is a disastrous message.
The Abraham Accords demonstrated that Arab countries can establish relations with Israel when they see the possibility of mutual security, trade and prosperity. But normalization cannot survive indefinitely alongside Gaza’s devastation, violent settlement expansion in the West Bank and ministers openly advocating mass killing and displacement.
Israel must decide what it wants: regional acceptance or permanent domination.
It cannot have both.
Netanyahu’s silence is no longer acceptable
Ben-Gvir does not command the Israeli military, but he is not an irrelevant outsider. He is Israel’s national security minister, controls important parts of the police and prison systems, sits in the security cabinet and helps shape government policy.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu therefore cannot dismiss these words as personal rhetoric. By keeping Ben-Gvir in his government and failing to repudiate him unequivocally, Netanyahu assumes political responsibility for allowing such extremism to influence Israeli policy.
Netanyahu’s predicament is obvious: his coalition depends upon Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party. Without their parliamentary support, his government could collapse.
That gives the far right an effective veto over peace.
But political survival cannot excuse moral surrender. If Netanyahu must choose between preserving his coalition and preserving Israel’s opportunity for regional coexistence, he must choose Israel.
A government that can survive only by empowering advocates of displacement and permanent war is itself part of the problem.
If Netanyahu genuinely supports the ceasefire and the search for a postwar settlement, he should reject Ben-Gvir’s proposals unequivocally and remove him from any position capable of affecting security policy.
A minister who calls for a predetermined number of killings every night is unfit to oversee national security.
The path toward coexistence
Israel can coexist successfully with the Middle East, but coexistence requires choices very different from those promoted by its far right.
Israel must:
- Respect the Gaza ceasefire and end unauthorized or unnecessary attacks.
- Reject collective punishment, forced displacement and the resettlement of Gaza.
- Confront settler violence in the West Bank and halt measures leading toward annexation.
- Recognize that Palestinians possess the same human dignity and national rights as Israelis.
- Support a credible political process leading to Palestinian self-government and security guarantees for both peoples.
- Expand regional cooperation through diplomacy, economic development and mutual recognition—not military domination.
Arab governments must also confront extremism, reject attacks against Israeli civilians and accept that Israel has a permanent place in the region. Coexistence cannot be demanded from only one side.
But Israel must understand that its military superiority cannot substitute for political legitimacy. Weapons can defeat an army, destroy infrastructure and eliminate individual militants. They cannot manufacture friendship, recognition or lasting peace.
Israel’s future will not be secured by killing 30 or 40 Palestinians every night. It will be secured when Israelis and Palestinians no longer believe that their own survival requires the disappearance of the other.
Ben-Gvir offers Israel endless war. Israel needs leaders capable of offering it a future.
