TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s far-right nationwide safety minister lashed out at supermodel Bella Hadid on Friday for criticizing his latest fiery televised remarks about Palestinians within the occupied West Bank.
In an interview earlier this week with Israel’s Channel 12 following two lethal Palestinian assaults towards Israelis within the occupied territory, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir argued that his proper to freedom of motion as a Jewish settler outweighs the identical proper for Palestinians.
“My right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria, is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs,” Ben-Gvir mentioned on TV Wednesday, utilizing the biblical title for the West Bank. “The right to life comes before freedom of movement.”
Addressing Mohammad Magadli, a widely known Israeli-Arab tv host who was within the studio, Ben-Gvir added: “Sorry, Mohammad. But that’s the reality.”
His assertion drew widespread criticism as commentators seized on it as proof of allegations that Israel was turning into an apartheid system that seeks to keep up Jewish hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The catchphrase “Sorry, Mohammad” grew to become meme fodder for social media as critics posted it alongside movies of Israeli violence towards Palestinians.
Hadid, a world-famous supermodel and social media influencer whose father is Palestinian, shared an excerpt from Ben-Gvir’s interview along with her 59.5 million followers on Instagram on Thursday, writing: “In no place, no time, especially in 2023 should one life be more valuable than another’s. Especially simply because of their ethnicity, culture or pure hatred.”
She additionally posted a video from main Israeli rights group B’Tselem exhibiting Israeli troopers within the southern West Bank metropolis of Hebron telling a resident that Palestinians should not permitted to stroll on a sure avenue as a result of it’s reserved for Jews. “Does this remind anyone of anything?” she wrote.
Ben-Gvir responded angrily on Friday to Hadid’s submit.
“I invite you to Kiryat Arba, to see how we live here, how every day, Jews who have done nothing wrong to anyone in their lives are murdered here,” he wrote on X, previously often known as Twitter. Ben-Gvir lives within the settlement of Kiryat Arba close to Hebron, the most important Palestinian metropolis.
Earlier this week, Palestinian gunmen opened fireplace on an Israeli automobile close to Hebron, killing an Israeli lady and significantly wounding the driving force. That assault got here simply days after a Palestinian taking pictures assault killed an Israeli father and son within the northern Palestinian city of Hawara.
Ben-Gvir acknowledged the backlash however doubled down on his unique assertion. “So yes, the right of me and my fellow Jews to travel and return home safely on the roads of Judea and Samaria outweighs the right of terrorists who throw stones at us and kill us,” he wrote.
Ben-Gvir has been convicted prior to now of inciting racism and of supporting a terrorist group. He was often known as an admirer of rabbi Meir Kahane, who was banned from Parliament and whose Kach occasion was branded a terrorist group by the United States earlier than he was assassinated in New York in 1990. Kach needed to strip Arab Israelis of their citizenship, segregate Israeli public areas, and ban marriages between Jews and non-Jews. Before becoming a member of politics, Ben-Gvir hung a portrait in his lounge of a Jewish man who fatally shot 29 Palestinians within the West Bank in 1994.
A once-marginal far-right activist, Ben-Gvir now wields vital energy because the nationwide safety minister overseeing the Israeli police drive in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s authorities.
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