Ben-Gvir Wants the Defense Ministry and a Cleaner Cage

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told The Jerusalem Post this week that if he gets the Defense Ministry, he'll "do for the IDF what I did for the police" and added that he could dismantle the Palestinian Authority, encourage emigration, recruit haredim and change the rules of engagement. That's not a campaign fantasy from the fringe. It's a sitting cabinet minister describing, four days before the October 27 election, what he'd do with the army.

The job he wants is one Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly refused him. Ben-Gvir says he loves Netanyahu "very much" and wants him to stay prime minister, which is the kind of affection a man shows toward the person holding the keys. His real fear is a different arrangement of the same machinery. Netanyahu, he claims, wants a "unity government" with Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar party, and "various other figures." Such a government "might look a little better to certain people around the world," Ben-Gvir said, "but it would not actually benefit Israel. It would harm Israel."

The Coalition Math

The latest polling shows neither Netanyahu's bloc nor the opposition bloc reaching 61 seats. Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit is projected at roughly eight. Asked how a government gets built from that arithmetic, he said he's confident another right-wing coalition is possible "if we get all our voters out into the streets."

His demand is blunt about what a government is for. "We cannot have a government that is split down the middle," he said. "The government needs to be able to make decisions in one direction or another. I want a right-wing government." Nobody in the interview mentions the people those decisions land on. The argument is entirely about who gets to hold the pen.

He waved off Ra'am and the Joint List, the Arab parties, and said a government with opposition figures like former prime minister Naftali Bennett would harm the country too. Shas and United Torah Judaism, he said, could still be partners despite the friction over haredi conscription. Everyone in this negotiation is a potential partner or a potential contaminant, sorted by seat count.

Promises Made in Brussels, Denied in Jerusalem

On Sunday, Ben-Gvir claimed Netanyahu had promised European officials he'd be excluded from the next coalition. Likud denied it. So the public record now holds an accusation that the prime minister told foreign diplomats one thing while telling his own coalition partners another, plus a flat denial, and no way for anyone outside those rooms to check. Ben-Gvir also said he received a "very warm welcome" at US President Donald Trump's home, which tells you which capital he thinks matters.

In a separate Friday development, Haaretz reported that Netanyahu promised a major West Bank operation days before the vote. The timing speaks for itself. A military operation promised to voters in the final week of a campaign is a campaign event with a casualty list attached.

What the Debate Leaves Out

The Palestinian Authority shows up in this interview as something Ben-Gvir could "dismantle," as if it were furniture. Emigration is something he'd "encourage." Rules of engagement are something he'd "change." The people on the receiving end aren't quoted, polled or consulted, and they don't get a vote on October 27. Neither, for that matter, do the haredim he wants to recruit, the conscripts he'd command, or the residents of the West Bank neighborhoods an operation might evacuate.

The campaign's real dispute is over packaging. One faction wants the occupation administered by a broad coalition that looks respectable abroad. Another wants it run openly by the right. Both agree that someone at the top should hold the monopoly on force. The ballot offers a choice of who commands it, not whether anyone should.