The Grotesque Politics of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich: Echoes From History’s Darkest Chapters
- Ahmed Fathi
- Aug 18
- 4 min read
Humiliation, displacement, and institutional destruction are not side effects. They are strategy — and history tells us where such a continuum can lead.
By Ahmed Fathi
New York — The grotesque spectacle of Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting the imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti was not a slip of the tongue or a sideshow of extremism. It was the unvarnished face of a coalition that thrives on humiliation as a political tool. Days later, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stripped away any lingering pretense when he pledged to expand West Bank settlements until Palestinian statehood is not simply delayed but buried.
These gestures are not isolated. They are the blueprint of a governing philosophy rooted in degradation, displacement, and denial. And history tells us precisely where such a trajectory can lead.
Humiliation as Policy
When a senior minister visits a prison cell to sneer at a political prisoner whose name still resonates among Palestinians, it is not mere bravado. It is statecraft by humiliation — designed to project dominance, to strip away dignity, to send a message to an entire people that resistance will not just be defeated but mocked.
Smotrich’s vow to “bury” Palestinian statehood is equally unambiguous. It is not a tactical negotiating position. It is an open declaration of erasure — to dismantle a people’s political horizon until their very claim to sovereignty disappears. On the ground, that project is already visible: families forced from Rafah and Khan Younis, hospitals and schools reduced to rubble in Gaza, mosques and churches flattened, and settlements advancing deeper into the West Bank.
The Echo of the 1930s
History never repeats itself in identical form, but its echoes are unmistakable. In Nazi Germany, Jews were first humiliated — their shops boycotted, their professions stripped, their synagogues burned. They were displaced from neighborhoods before their communities were ultimately annihilated.
The sequence is chillingly familiar. Humiliation begets displacement. Displacement destroys institutions. Institution destruction paves the way for erasure.
When Ben-Gvir parades his taunts before Barghouti, when Smotrich boasts of burying Palestinian aspirations, when bombs fall on hospitals and schools, we are hearing the same whisper that Europe ignored in the 1930s: degradation is never the endgame. It is the beginning.
Western Sanctions vs. Middle Eastern Calculations
Western democracies have begun to draw a line. The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, and the Netherlands have sanctioned Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, imposing travel bans and asset freezes. For once, close allies of Israel have said aloud that this grotesque politics cannot be normalized.
The Middle East, however, operates within a different framework. Egypt and Qatar, together with the United States, are locked in shuttle diplomacy — trying to negotiate fragile ceasefire arrangements, secure hostage releases, and avert a wider regional war. For Cairo, geography and its peace treaty with Israel dictate restraint. For Doha, its unique channel to Hamas gives it leverage that would collapse under overt sanctions. For Riyadh and Abu Dhabi, normalization prospects and regional stability calculations loom larger than symbolic punitive measures.
This is not complicity; it is a wider calculus. Arab capitals balance domestic opinion, regional rivalries, U.S. pressure, and their own survival strategies. Sanctions are one tool among many — and for now, they have chosen to keep that tool in reserve.
At the United Nations: Paralysis as Routine
Inside the United Nations, these dynamics converge. Western diplomats cite sanctions as precedent. Palestinians plead for accountability. Arab representatives tread cautiously, aligning their positions with mediation efforts and regional stability concerns. The Security Council remains blocked by vetoes; the General Assembly thunders but carries little enforcement power.
It is a familiar scene. In the 1930s, the League of Nations denounced fascist aggression but failed to act decisively. Today, the UN risks repeating that same pattern of words without consequence.
The Lesson We Refuse to Learn
Israel is not Nazi Germany. Palestinians are not European Jews. But the continuum is visible: humiliation, displacement, the destruction of civic institutions, and the erasure of political identity.
Western democracies have chosen one path — symbolic accountability through sanctions. Arab governments, caught between mediation roles and geopolitical calculations, have chosen another. Both approaches are understandable in their context. But history will not measure intentions; it will measure outcomes.
The lesson of the 1930s is not subtle. The world had its warning signs, and it looked away. Today, Ben-Gvir’s grotesque taunts and Smotrich’s vows of burial are warning signs written in plain text. The question is whether global diplomacy — fractured between sanctions on one side and mediation on the other — can summon enough coherence to act before humiliation hardens into erasure.
The bottom line: When hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and infrastructure are bombed, when families are forced from their homes, when ministers pledge to bury a people’s political future, history is not whispering. It is screaming. And while some states wield sanctions and others cling to mediation, the real measure will be whether these tools, used together or apart, can prevent history from repeating its darkest echoes.
** Ahmed Fathi is a United Nations correspondent, global affairs analyst, and author of* America First, The World Divided: Trump 2.0 Influence. *He writes about diplomacy, multilateralism, power, perception, and the politics that shape our global future.