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The Israeli Election Commission has fined National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for a video in which he threatens to “execute” a Palestinian prisoner, deeming it “election propaganda” at taxpayers’ expense. According to the ruling seen by AFP on Friday, the commission determined that the minister violated election rules by releasing the video during the campaign for the October 27 parliamentary elections, while his visit to the prison was part of his official government duties.
An extreme right-wing figure who aspires to become Minister of Defense should the governing coalition he is part of win, Itamar Ben Gvir frequently appears in videos where he insults and threatens Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.
“I want to kill you. I want to execute you.”
On September 27, he posted a video on X, since removed from his account but still accessible online, in which he addresses Hassan Salameh, a member of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, sentenced to several life sentences for orchestrating attacks that killed 45 people in Israel in 1996. “I want to kill you. I want to execute you,” Itamar Ben Gvir tells him, adding in the caption that “with God’s help, as Minister of Defense, I will act to ensure that murderous terrorists like him are executed.”
Seized by two NGOs, the Commission, responsible for ensuring compliance with electoral rules, ordered him on Thursday evening to remove the video and pay 20,000 shekels (approximately 5,800 euros) to the two complaining organizations, including the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI).
Public resources for “election propaganda”
“The video is considered election propaganda,” and it is “established that public resources were used” in its production, “which constitutes a violation” of the rules, the document states. “We hope that the repeated decisions of the Electoral Commission will deter the minister from continuing to use prisons as if they were his private property and to humiliate detainees as part of his election propaganda,” responded Merav Ben-Zeev, legal director of the PCATI.
In March, this ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu celebrated with champagne, with video evidence, the adoption by Parliament of a law establishing the death penalty “for terrorists”, targeting Palestinians found guilty of deadly anti-Israeli attacks.
