“People like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir” is the common, exhausted refrain of anyone sick of Israeli political extremism. The pairing is, to some degree, natural: the two men head the Knesset’s two most extreme right-wing factions and ran on a joint list in the previous election.
But lumping them together obscures a mile-wide difference in their fundamental natures: one is a politician, and the other is a demagogue.
Take Bezalel Smotrich’s record as finance minister. It is, by Israeli standards, respectable. He attempted to pass necessary reforms in the import and dairy industries. Yes, he has failed to pass necessary financial institution reform and channeled billions of state funds to the haredim (ultra-Orthodox).
But frankly, the former is hardly indictable, and the latter stain marks the tenure of every finance minister before him.
As a minister within the Defense Ministry tasked with settlement affairs, his record either dazzles or disgusts, depending entirely on how you view the enterprise. By breaking all previous records for building, funding, and authorizing outposts, he has cemented his reputation on the center-left as the ultimate threat to the state.
According to the Jewish People Policy Institute, 58% of Jewish Israelis now explicitly view settlements in Judea and Samaria as a vital deterrent that actively contributes to national security. While Diaspora Jewry often watches his aggressive expansion with horror and dismay, the uncomfortable truth for his critics remains: settlements are well within Israel’s Overton window.
Granted, demonstrating how effectively Smotrich has driven a stake into Palestinian territorial continuity is hardly going to sway the heart of a two-state advocate. But if not on points, perhaps on principle, one can appreciate that he is a politician who truly believes in his enterprise and effectively uses the legitimate powers granted to him to fulfill one of his constituency’s core priorities.
Contrast that with Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose tenure as national security minister has been defined by administrative incompetence. Even his crowning legislative achievement, last month’s death penalty law, arrived effectively toothless, bogged down by nearly impossible evidentiary standards and loopholes that grant judges full discretion to ignore the penalty altogether.
His day-to-day management has been just as dismal. Despite securing a record-breaking internal security budget, he presides over a hollowed-out police force suffering a deficit of more than 1,500 frontline officers.
While his base routinely praises him for the massive expansion of civilian firearm access – boasting over 230,000 new licenses issued – the actual Firearms Licensing Division collapsed under his watch. It was systematically mismanaged by political appointees and novices who bypassed standard vetting, leading to a 500% explosion in public complaints, 85% of which the State Comptroller ruled fully justified.
Yet all of this administrative failure pales in comparison to the shameful, unchecked explosion of gang violence that has essentially conquered Israel’s Arab communities.
“What exactly is your problem?” Channel 14’s Noam Miron asked, defending Ben-Gvir’s recent stunt with the flotilla activists. “That they detained terrorist activists who came by boat and violated Israel’s sovereignty, put them in zip-ties, and kept them under guard?”
Miron’s defense echoes the classic populist shrug: What’s the big deal?
When pressed on the actual utility of these antics, his defenders inevitably fall back on the same excuse: “But it sends a message.”
They will freely admit that no terrorist is actually going to be executed, and they know his actions actively sabotage Israel’s public diplomacy on the world stage. But still, they insist, it sends a message. What message is left to the eye of the beholder.
To his political base, it signals, “Don’t mess with Israel.” To the broader Israeli public, it is cheap political grandstanding. And to the international community, it simply confirms every existing bias about Israeli chauvinism.
The politics of performance
This rot cuts far deeper than public relations. It represents the decay of politics from the art of governance into a permanent theater of slogans. This spectacle directly feeds the most destructive impulse of the Israeli Right: a deep-seated anti-institutionalism that mistakes the vandalism of governance for political strength.
Policy requires the prosaic, thankless labor of statecraft – inter-ministerial coordination, building coalitions, and institutional discipline. Messages, by contrast, are entirely individualistic, manufactured on a whim and abandoned just as quickly.
Crucially, policy demands accountability; once enacted, a politician is inextricably tied to its real-world consequences. But when a politician produces nothing but noise, they remain conveniently unbound by reality.
Despite Smotrich’s notorious lack of English proficiency, he understands the word responsibility. Following a terrorist attack, Smotrich recklessly declared that “the village of Huwara needs to be erased.” Yet, following the ensuing global uproar, he partially walked back the statement, claiming he meant the state should aggressively target terrorists within the town, not harm innocents.
By contrast, Ben-Gvir – whose rhetoric routinely reaches and surpasses that level of extremism – has never issued a genuine walk-back. Any “clarifications” he has offered were extracted under judicial duress during High Court disqualification challenges, serving as the bare minimum legal compliance required to secure his seat in the Knesset.
Perhaps the greatest testimony to their difference lies in the proceedings of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite acting as the face of what might be called “Genocidal Zionism,” it is Smotrich, not Ben-Gvir, for whom the prosecutor is currently seeking an arrest warrant.
The reason is darkly comedic: Ben-Gvir has not been effective enough to warrant a warrant. His administration has been so devoid of substance and coherent policy that it offers little legal purchase for a case.
None of this suggests an obligation to vote for or even support Smotrich. He has enough skeletons in his closet for most moderate voters to shut the door on him. It simply highlights that he and Ben-Gvir bear only an aesthetic similarity, not an essential one.
David Ben-Gurion was fond of the mantra, “It doesn’t matter what the non-Jews say, but what the Jews do.” Yet, it seems the Israeli public has developed a growing appetite for those who say a great deal while doing very little. Smotrich, having once anchored a joint list that netted 14 seats, is now a shadow of his former electoral self, consistently struggling in polls to remain above the threshold.
Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir is surging. Despite an administrative record defined by the collapse of his ministry’s core functions, a hollowed-out police force, and a toothless death penalty law, his faction is projected to capture 8 to 10 seats independently.
In this light, Smotrich’s struggle to remain politically relevant does not portend a broader rejection of his ideology, as his critics might hope. Rather, it signals a fundamental shift in the electorate’s palate.
Israel has begun to join the global degradation of political culture: we have entered an era where style is just as, if not more, important than substance.
The writer serves as the English director of the Ribo Center and the editor of Amit Segal’s newsletter, It’s Noon in Israel.