Itamar Ben Gvir, Israel ’s national security minister, will travel to New York next month to attend a UN conference on policing, Haaretz reported this week.
The minister is expected to head up a delegation from the national security ministry to attend the annual UNCops summit.
Under the title “Investing in Peace”, the conference will take place between 7 and 8 July and will see security ministers and police chiefs around the world discuss “strengthening international peace, security and development for all" through national and transnational police forces.
Ben Gvir will attend despite criticising the UN for several years.
In June 2024, after Israel was placed on a blacklist for harming children in conflict zones, he stated that “the UN has allied itself with Hamas and has become a collaborator of terror".
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Earlier that year, he had boasted about Israel destroying the UN refugee agency for Palestinians' (Unrwa) building in occupied East Jerusalem.
Just last week, Ben Gvir called for the kidnap of Lebanese “women and youth” to exert pressure on Hezbollah.
"Let's start thinking outside the box about Hezbollah," Ben Gvir said.
"Conquering territory and killing many terrorists, but also detaining their women and youth and taking them to terrorist prisons… That's what hurts them the most."
Last month, a video of Ben Gvir overseeing the mistreatment of Gaza-bound flotilla activists detained by Israel went viral, and was criticised globally as well as in Israel .
He was filmed waving an Israeli flag and confronting activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla as they were being manhandled and forced to kneel facing the ground by officers from the Israel Prison Service (IPS).
The footage drew condemnation from several world leaders, including officials from countries whose citizens were among those detained by Israel.
Criticism also emerged within Israel, though it was largely focused on concerns that the video had damaged the country’s standing abroad.
Who is Ben Gvir?
Ben Gvir has for years overseen and spearheaded the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem by Israeli settlers. The minister himself lives in the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba in the Palestinian city of Hebron.
Ben Gvir's political ideas are influenced by Meir Kahane, an influential rabbi, former MP, and founder of the Kach party, which wants to establish a pure Jewish society.
Aged 16, Ben Gvir joined Kach as an activist before it was designated a terror group by the United States and banned in Israel, after a Kach member, Baruch Goldstein, killed dozens of Palestinian worshippers in the Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron in 1994.
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Ben Gvir has called Kahane a “holy man, a righteous man”, while revering Goldstein, his most notorious follower.
For years, Ben Gvir hung a portrait of Goldstein on the wall of his home. A clip unearthed a few years ago showed Ben Gvir dressed as Goldstein for the Jewish holiday of Purim, saying: “He is my hero.”
In 2007 , Ben Gvir was convicted of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist group after he held up a sign reading “Arabs out”. In his car were found Kahanist posters: “It’s us or them” and “There is a solution – expel the Arab enemy”.
For years, Ben Gvir worked as a lawyer to acquit those accused of anti-Palestinian incitement and attacks. His most high-profile case was defending two teenagers charged with an arson attack on a Palestinian family in the village of Duma in 2015. An 18-month-old baby was among the victims burnt to death.
In recent days, Ben Gvir was forced to cancel a trip to the US for a friend’s wedding, after having difficulties obtaining a visa.
According to a source cited by Haaretz, the minister is not expected to face any difficulties obtaining a visa for the UN policing conference, due to his role as a national security minister.
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