Acceptable Till it Wasn’t: Itamar Ben-Gvir and the Global Sumud Flotilla
Photograph Source: שי קנדלר – CC BY-SA 4.0
It has been a sorry though predictable exercise. When he lived up (or down) to expectations of atrocious conduct befitting the proud bigot that he is, Israel’s Minister for National Security had to be seen as aberrant, the man who strayed, if only slightly. The conduct in question involved Itamar Ben-Gvir’s posting of footage on social media mocking the fate of activists of the Global Sumud Flotilla who had made a failed humanitarian effort to break the blockade of Gaza. The activists, seized in international waters by Israeli forces off the coast of Cyprus, had been blindfolded, their hands bound, and forced to kneel on the floor at the Port of Ashdod.
The caption of the posted video featured the warming caption “Welcome to Israel”. Ben-Gvir can be seen waving an Israeli flag, taunting the detainees with bellowing remarks. One bound man can be seen having to hear the words “The people of Israel live” shouted in his face.
Much of this would have been filed in a drawer under the title of “acceptable conduct” and gone unremarked. Ben-Gvir oversees the running of his country’s police and prisons, which he has served to corrupt and politicise with impunity. He has been given vast latitude to be brutal and brutish, most notably to Palestinians. With clear relish, he regularly posts videos of how Israel’s Prison Service treats its Palestinian inmates, which number somewhere in the order of 9,500. (About half are held under the Unlawful Combatants Law, a ghastly statute that negates due process and opportunities for the detained to rebut allegations made against them.)
He has also been riding the wave of foamy intolerance stimulated by the attacks of October 7, 2023 by Hamas on Israel, leading a successful campaign to apply the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of attacks on the State of Israel and the Jewish people (that same penalty does not apply to Israelis for acts of terrorism). On the occasion of his 50thbirthday, his upstanding wife, Ayala, thought it fitting to present him with a cake decorated with a hangman’s noose. In previous comments, he has also expressed a preference for shooting Palestinian detainees in the head. And in terms of embracing the concept of a Greater Israel, Ben-Gvir is very much its podgy poster boy, indulging the murderous violence inflicted by fellow Israeli settlers in the West Bank upon their hapless Palestinian residents.
But Israel’s often smug propaganda establishment was not prepared for what followed. A number of countries whose citizens had been detained expressed official outrage. Israel’s ambassadors to Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands and Canada were summoned to seek formal clarifications about the position of the Netanyahu government.
The Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, along with her Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, declared the footage “unacceptable.” It was “intolerable for these protestors, including many Italian citizens, to be subjected to treatment that is so degrading to human dignity.” In addition to seeking the release of the Italian citizens, an apology was also sought “for the treatment of these protestors, and for the total disregard of the Italian Government’s explicit requests.”
The UK’s Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper expressed her concerns in a social media post. “I am truly appalled at the video posted by Israeli Cabinet Minister Ben-Gvir taunting those involved in the Global Sumud Flotilla.” The conduct had violated “the most basic standards of respect and dignity in the way people should be treated.” The families of a number of British nationals had also been contacted in the hope of providing consular support.
Anita Annand, Canada’s Foreign Minister, told reporters that her government took the matter “very, very seriously. It’s a matter of humane treatment of civilians, and I can assure you that we are acting with absolute urgency.” From Spain came the remarks of Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares that the treatment of the activists had been “monstrous”, while his Irish counterpart Helen McEntee expressed her shock at the footage while calling for the immediate release of the activists.
The South Korean President Lee Jae Myung went even further, casting an eye back to the entire seizure of the protestors at sea and posing a series of questions: “What is the legal basis? Is it Israeli territorial waters? Is that Israeli land? If there is conflict, can they seize and detain third-country vessels?”
From Paris came the scolding words of Foreign Minister Jean-Nöel Barrot: “We cannot tolerate French nationals being threatened, intimidated, or subjected to violence in this way, especially by a public official. I note that these actions have been condemned by a large number of Israeli governmental and political figures. On March 23, France went even further. “As from today,” announced Barrot, “Itamar Ben-Gvir is banned from entering French territory.” The decision was made in response to the minister’s “reprehensible actions towards French and European citizens who were passengers on the Global Sumud Flotilla.”
Faced with his fusillade of rage and query, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose form over substance. While Israel retained, according to his statement, “every right to prevent provocative flotillas of Hamas terrorist supporters from entering our territorial waters and reaching Gaza”, Ben-Gvir’s approach was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms.” Even then, the sense was that Ben-Gvir had only just exceeded expectations of otherwise justifiable conduct. He was, after all, responding to terrorist sympathisers and “provocateurs”. Furthermore, Netanyahu could never profess ignorance of Ben-Gvir’s scorpion sting, coming from a repulsive creature convicted of 13 criminal offences, including publishing incitement to racism, expressing identification with a terror group, possessing propaganda material of a terror group, participating in a riot and defacing property.
Prior to the elections in March 2021, Netanyahu told Channel 12 that the future minister in his cabinet was “not fit” for ministerial duties. When the interviewer pressed the PM on whether he considered Ben-Gvir a racist, Netanyahu blandly responded that, “His positions are not mine.” The Israeli PM is, however, a man who puts gritty political survival above keen principle, an approach that has ensured him a remarkable longevity in politics. His bigotry, no less felt than the far-right ministers he courts, is worn with softer, more acceptable shades.
Ben-Gvir, basking in the hot spotlight, is understandably confident in his survival as a member of the cabinet. Supreme Court scrutiny of his fitness for office will hardly prove a discouragement. “The days when terrorists want to hurt us, and we had to be apologetic, nice and understanding, are over,” he told the Knesset hours after posting the video. He need hardly have concerned himself: the obituary of such niceness and understanding had long ago been penned.
“The torture of US citizens and humanitarian volunteers with American-made tools... is the direct outcome of unconditional US support for a regime continuously committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
Members of the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla who were injured by their Israeli captors after their abduction on the high seas are attended to upon arriving at Istanbul Airport on May 21, 2026.
(Photo by Burak Kara/Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
May 26, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Testimonies published Tuesday from activists, journalists, medical professionals, and others who took part in the latest international flotilla attempting to break Israel’s genocidal siege of Gaza called for an investigation into US complicity in their illegal high-seas abduction and alleged torture, sexual assault, and other abuse by Israeli forces.
“As testimonies from the 428 participants illegally kidnapped by the Israeli regime continue to surface, the United States’ critical role in the abuses and torture of humanitarian volunteers and journalists has become undeniable,” Global Sumud Flotilla’s (GSF) media team said in a statement.
“This role goes beyond the State Department’s diplomatic shielding and the US Embassy’s refusal to assist American families seeking information,” GSF continued. “It includes the very ship on which volunteer participants were illegally detained and tortured, and the weapons used to inflict life-threatening trauma against them.”
That vessel, the amphibious landing ship INS Nahshon, was built by Bollinger Mississippi Shipbuilding in Louisiana and was fully financed by the US government. GSF activists first became aware of what they now call the “torture boat” when it was used to detain members of the previous Gaza-bound flotilla, dozens of whom required medical attention for broken ribs, noses, and other injuries inflicted by Israeli forces.
This time, according to GSF, “detained humanitarians, doctors, and journalists were processed one by one through a darkened shipping container. Inside, groups of three to five soldiers systematically brutalized each person who came through the door while those waiting outside listened to the screams.”
Flotilla participant Yassine Benjelloun described his mistreatment by his Israeli captors.
“All of a sudden I hear, ‘Welcome to Israel.’ And I start getting hit, like first hit on the head, second hit in the ribs, then I fall, then they kick me,” he said. “What lasts maybe three or five minutes seems like a lifetime. You don’t know that the door is going to open, and they’re going to kick you out.”
Dr. Jihan Alya Mohd Nordin, a Malaysian physician aboard the flotilla, documented 35 GSF members with fractured or dislocated bones, as well as severe head injuries including concussions and eye or ear trauma, and 14 cases of sexual assault.
“Being a doctor, the main aim is to reduce the sufferings of people,” Jihan said. “But when we cannot do anything to help them, it was the worst and most horrible feeling that I have. It was so devastating.”
Jihan said she was shoved, struck, punched, kicked, and choked by her captors, who forcibly stripped off her hijab.
In addition to the ship, the weapons used against the civilian flotilla members were also made in the USA.
“Stun grenades and metal-bearing projectile rounds were identified by manufacturer markings as products of Combined Tactical Systems (CTS), a brand of the Jamestown, Pennsylvania-based weapons manufacturer Combined Systems Inc. (CSI),” GSF said. “These weapons were fired at close range in enclosed spaces against participants who were sitting down or trying to sleep, a direct violation of the manufacturer’s own usage guidelines.”
GSF argues that “none of this was accidental.”
According to former State Department official Josh Paul—who resigned in protest in 2023 over US arms transfers to Israel as it began waging a genocidal war against Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7 of that year—“Under US law, arms transfers must only be made for purposes authorized by law.”
“INS Nahshon‘s use by Israel to conduct an illegal seizure in international waters, and then to act as a base for the torture and sexual assault of foreign civilians, including Americans, who had broken no laws, and were acting from conscience to serve an urgent humanitarian need, plainly and grievously violates those terms,” he continued.
“When this sale was authorized, US officials will have asked themselves how Israel might use this platform,” Paul added. “The basis on which they should have denied this transfer has been there since at least the Mavi Marmara incident... but is now more clear than ever, and the lesson here is a simple one: that anything we transfer to Israel, Israel will find a way to misuse—whether it is a bomb, a bulldozer, or a boat.”
Paul was referring to the May 2010 raid on one of the first Gaza Freedom Flotilla convoys, during which Israeli forces killed nine volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan.
“While international law has been flagrantly violated and legal proceedings are now active in Turkey, Italy, and Spain, with Italian prosecutors opening an investigation into kidnapping and sexual assault, the US government continues to look away,” GSF said in regard to the latest flotilla.
Americans aboard past Gaza flotillas said the Trump administration failed to provide any consular support during their abduction and abuse.
This time, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee—a Christian Zionist who has denied the very existence of the Palestinian people—joined senior officials from other countries in condemning Israel’s abuse of abducted flotilla members.
GSF said Tuesday that “the Israeli regime continues to commit genocide using US-built ships and US-made weapons. The torture of US citizens and humanitarian volunteers with American-made tools is not an anomaly. It is the direct outcome of unconditional US support for a regime continuously committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
That support includes tens of billions of dollars in armed aid during the Biden and Trump administrations, which both also provided diplomatic cover for Israel, including vetoes of numerous Gaza ceasefire resolutions passed by the United Nations Security Council.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces have killed or wounded more than 250,000 Palestinians in Gaza—including thousands of people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble—while forcibly displacing, intentionally starving, or sickening around 2 million others.
Israel’s actions are the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by nearly 20 other nations. The International Criminal Court has also issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, including murder and forced starvation.
Last year, a UN panel of experts said that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, a conclusion also reached by numerous governments, human rights groups, jurists, and scholars—including prominent Israeli and other Jewish Holocaust experts.
Flotilla participants have stressed that their ordeal pales in comparison to the plight of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children imprisoned by Israel, often without charge or trial under the country’s administrative detention regime. Israeli authorities are investigating the deaths of dozens of Palestinian prisoners, some of whom were allegedly tortured to death and executed. Others have allegedly been subjected to widespread rape and sexual abuse in Israeli detention.
“What GSF participants survived for days, many Palestinians endure indefinitely without lawyers or consular access,” the flotilla organizers said.
GSF is calling on the US government to take actions including the investigation of Israel’s use of US-origin arms and other equipment to abuse American citizens, a suspension of arms transfers to Israel pending the outcome of the probe, and “end unconditional military and diplomatic support for a regime committing genocide.”
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