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Ben-Gvir Calls For Assassinations Of Palestinian Officials

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by blueapples
Tuesday, Nov 18, 2025 - 12:00

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On Monday, the United Nations Security Council voted to adopt a resolution drafted by the United States implementing President Donald Trump's plan to bring an end to the war that has ravaged the Gaza Strip for the last 2 years. While skepticism still surrounds the feasibility of Trump's 20-point plan for the future of Gaza, which lays out a multi-stage process that would hand control of the Gaza Strip over to an International Stabilization Force and government administration overseen by the Trump-chaired "Board of Peace," its advancement by the UNSC was embraced as an alternative to endless bloodshed. However, the tenuous nature of that optimistic outlook has been put into context by vitriolic responses from senior Israeli officials within the government of Benjamin Netanyahu disavowing the peace plan. Their remarks on the advancement of Trump's plan for Gaza highlight how precarious hopes for any lasting peace in the region are.

Israeli National Security Minister Ben-Gvir has responded to calls for peace between Israeli and Palestine by urging more political violence.

In the hours ahead of the vote, Israeli National Security Minister and unapologetic Jewish supremacist Itamar Ben Gvir called for the assassination of senior officials within the Palestinian Authority should the UNSC adopt the proposed resolution. Ben-Gvir, who was convicted of incitement anti-Arab racism and supporting a terrorist organization in 2007 before entering into politics, also called for the arrest of PA President Mahmoud Abbas as a means of preventing any possible recognition of Palestinian statehood that could emerge should the long-term tenets of the Trump peace plan be put into place.

Although the peace plan for Gaza makes no firm commitment toward the recognition of a Palestinian state, the possibility of its realization is ambiguously alluded to in its terms codified into international law by the UN resolution. That possibility depends on the adoption of widespread reforms within the PA, the disarmament of Hamas, and the rebuilding of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. Should those and other parameters of the plan be implemented, then "conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood," under the terms of the UN resolution.

Despite his tacit endorsement of Trump's peace plan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has remained firm in rejecting the possibility of Palestinian statehood as a byproduct of its implementation. Just one day before the UNSC vote, Netanyahu told members of his cabinet that his opposition to the recognition of a Palestinian state had not changed one bit. The Netanyahu government went as far as to diplomatically push to alter the draft of the UN resolution to exclude the non-committal language of a potential pathway to statehood for Palestine in its entirety, but ultimately failed in persuading the US contingent introducing the resolution from omitting the text.

That effort undertaken by the Netanyahu cabinet to dissuade the US from even entertaining the possibility of Palestinian statehood was still not enough to slake the bloodlust of the likes of Ben-Gvir. During a meeting of the Jewish Power party led by Ben-Gvir at the Knesset on Monday, the national security minister vociferously voiced his anger with Netanyahu for not doing enough to stop any political momentum accelerating the recognition of a Palestinian state, using the failure of the prime minister to amplify his violent rhetoric against the Palestinian people. “If they accelerate recognition of a Palestinian terror state…orders must be given for targeted killings of senior Palestinian Authority officials—who are terrorists in every respect—as well as an order for the arrest of Abbas,” he said. 

Ben-Gvir's unequivocal rejection of a future Palestinian state was echoed by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who declared, "My life's mission is to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state in the heart of our land." Ben-Gvir and Smotrich represent factions within the ruling coalition of the Netanyahu government in the Knesset that hold an even more hyper-Zionist ideology than the Likud Party led by the prime minister. Since returning to the office of prime minister in 2022, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have threatened to abandon the ruling coalition as a means of sabotaging Netanyahu. Those threats only became enhanced following Israel's war in Gaza, with Ben-Gvir strongly condemning any path forward in the conflict other than the complete elimination of Hamas and the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people in the region. With Israel set to hold its next legislative elections no later than by October 27th, 2026, the passage of the UN resolution implementing Trump's peace plan has become the latest point of conjecture in the power struggle for the future rule of Israel.

However, the premise of the Trump peace plan leading toward recognition of Palestinian statehood may be a moot point altogether, as many of its core components appear dead upon arrival. One central point forecasting the plan's inevitable demise is the requirement for the complete disarmament of Hamas. Following the adoption of the UN resolution, Hamas reiterated its rejection of disarmament, claiming it was not part of the original negotiations of the plan. Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told Qatar-based outlet Al Jazeera that "no clause regarding the disarmament of the resistance was on the table in the Sharm El-Sheikh negotiations," adding, "It is unacceptable that we be imposed with the equation of either we are killed or we surrender."

Hamas has also firmly rejected the imposition of an International Stabilization Force and the temporary transitional governance of Gaza by a "technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee" overseen by Trump as laid out in the 20-point peace plan, viewing their implementation as the foundation of a future Israeli occupation of Gaza. "Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation," Hamas officials said in an official statement rejecting the resolution released shortly after its passage by the UNSC.

Following the adoption of the resolution, Trump administration officials remained positive in the face of opposition from Israelis and Palestinians alike that cast doubt on the future of any long-term peace. The US Ambassador to the United Nations stated, "This resolution represents the first real step in generations towards forging a lasting peace for Gaza, for Palestinians, for Israelis, and for the entire region." President Trump echoed Waltz' optimistic messaging himself in a post via his Truth Social account in which he characterized the passage of the UN resolution as "a moment of true historic proportion." However, that optimistic response from the Trump administration verges on naivety, as the dissatisfaction with the peace plan codified into international law by the UN from members of the Netanyahu government and Hamas signals its collapse as a fait accompli.

Contributor posts published on Zero Hedge do not necessarily represent the views and opinions of Zero Hedge, and are not selected, edited or screened by Zero Hedge editors.
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