FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
JERUSALEM – From Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in less than 40 minutes, when on a normal traffic day it takes at least 10 more. Itamar Ben-Gvir he’s always in a hurry. Too much according to the secret service guards who have to protect him: in September last year they complained to their superiors because the Minister for Public Safety – also supervises the traffic police – forces them to exceed the speed limits, to overtake using the emergency lane, to run red lights.
Now that he doesn’t have his foot on the accelerator Ben-Gvir pressures his subordinates to run and run, without operational safety reasons: once he had to get to a television interview in time – another burned intersection, another accident –, another he wanted to get home before sundown on Shabbat, when religious rules prohibit using the car. The public whose safety it is supposed to guarantee remains involved and battered: in one case a family of five people.
But the minister is a repeat offender: When he was driving, he received at least 76 fines for various violations, he had to take remedial courses twice for the points on his license. He also sets a bad example live on TikTok, where spreads video while sitting in the back seat without a seatbeltin Israel it would be mandatory.
Above all – the newspaper Haaretz reported – the police are afraid of him and despite the filmed evidence no officer would have dared to present him with the fine.
The lack of respect for the rules dates back to the Kahanist youth, the followers of the Rabbi Meir Kahanebanned by parliament for racism and incitement to violence. Ben-Gvir was convicted of supporting a Jewish terrorist organization and for this reason he has never performed military service, he who now claims to join the war council.
The Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he holds onto it because he is afraid of losing his numbers to stay in power.
The first time Israelis were forced to notice Ben-Gvir – he is now everywhere from debates to cooking shows where he presents his stuffed peppers – was in the autumn of 1995, when he was 19 years old and appeared on television brandishing the metal logo of the government Cadillac: «We caught his car and soon we will catch him».
A few weeks later Yigal Amir, messianic ultranationalist like him, he hit Yitzhak Rabin with two bullets before he could even get into that car, an attack that also killed the peace process wanted by the Labor prime minister.
