The impact of Sumud – Part 1: Israel is getting Ben‑Gvir‑ized

I’m about to head out to welcome our Sumud activist friends who are landing in Istanbul. By the time you read these lines, the brave representatives of humanity’s cause for Gaza will have told what happened to them during the three days they were held captive. I want to listen to them for hours.

Everyone – especially the media – will ask them how they felt hearing the inhuman behavior of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben‑Gvir, the insults he spewed while foaming at the mouth. As someone who has been treated the same way, I can say one big word: "Nothing." A pathetic Ben‑Gvir whose hatred gets an immediate response, who "displays his Israeli‑ness" in the shadow of the soldiers around him.

Since the day before yesterday, there's been Ben‑Gvir panic in Israeli public opinion and politics. The media and his cabinet colleagues are trying to frame him as an out‑of‑control, unruly, mischievous politician. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar said, "You deliberately harmed the state with this disgraceful spectacle. No, you are not the face of Israel," giving the appearance of a political rift. Even the Butcher of Gaza, Benjamin Netanyahu, was forced to say that "his attitude toward the flotilla activists is inconsistent with Israel's values and norms."

Right here, a huge manipulation kicks in – as if Israel actually had any values to present to the world. By putting a straitjacket on Ben‑Gvir and diagnosing him as an "out‑of‑control extremist," they try to absolve the rest of Israel. As if there were a reasonable state reason and Ben‑Gvir was just a virus that slipped into that structure. Yet the world – especially since October 7 – has been watching the exact opposite.

Because Ben‑Gvir is the symptom of flare‑ups of a mental illness that Israel has hidden for years but can no longer conceal.

Today, it's not Ben‑Gvir's circle who are killing people in Gaza by starving them. The ones who besiege hospitals, seize aid ships, target journalists, and normalize child deaths as "operational results" – they're all part of the same structure. There is one difference, of course: the others use diplomatic language, while Ben‑Gvir shouts out loud what the average Israeli is thinking.

That's why the Israeli public's real fear isn't so much what Ben‑Gvir does, but that he has started to represent Israel's true state of mind in front of the whole world. Because from inside Israel – which for years has been sold as "the only democracy in the Middle East" – a politician emerges who insults on camera, brags about inhuman treatment, scorns international law, and this man, ahead of upcoming elections, is supported by millions precisely because of his psychopathy.

Aren't all the settlers who raid Palestinian homes in the West Bank and put out their stoves each a Ben‑Gvir? It's the same whether it's a minister who enjoys torturing European civil activists or one of those radical Jewish kids from Hilltop Youth who raid Palestinian homes at midnight.

More importantly: Israel no longer tries to stay afloat by reining in figures like Ben‑Gvir. It tries to stay afloat using their language. Don't be fooled by their attempts to look humane.

With the Gaza genocide, Israel lost its reputation as a "state." Ben‑Gvir's rise happened right in this period. So Ben‑Gvir doesn't just represent Israel. We can say: Israel is getting Ben‑Gvir‑ized.

For all these reasons, we need to shut down those who try to present the Sumud Flotilla as a dismissible "aid flotilla." We can certainly discuss the organization, its shortcomings, what could happen. But those who try to make this civilian mission look like a failure are also covering up the bigger picture.

Because even if Sumud hasn't reached Gaza in two voyages over eight months, it has managed to rip apart the packaging that Israel has been building for years with great care.

The world confronted, live on broadcasts, this Israel: a state afraid of boats carrying humanitarian aid. An army scared of civil activists. A security apparatus that kidnaps people in international waters – and the collapse of a propaganda machine trying to legitimize it all.

For years, Israel had veiled its attacks on Palestinians with the excuse of "security." But this time, facing it were not armed groups, but doctors, lawyers, parliamentarians, sailors, and conscientious people from all over the world. That's where Sumud's biggest impact came in. Sumud cornered Israel humanely, morally, and psychologically.

A handful of activists made visible, in the middle of the Mediterranean, the face that Israel had skillfully hidden for years: its hatred for the rest of humanity – regardless of religion, language, or race.

Israel's real defeat is that, in the face of the civilian, humane, and intellectual vision displayed by the Sumud Flotilla on the Mediterranean, its own asymmetrical propaganda fortress was torn down.

I will keep writing about the impact of Sumud – the movement I'm part of.