Itamar Ben Gvir has accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of secretly assuring several European Union governments that he will be excluded from the next Israeli cabinet. The national security minister made the claim on October 18 in a statement issued by his Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party.
Ben Gvir said information reaching him in recent days indicated that the Prime Minister’s Office had “officially promised” a number of EU countries that neither he nor his party would sit in the next government. The assurances were passed to European foreign ministers and to officials of still higher rank, he said.
Netanyahu’s Likud party rejected the accusation outright and dismissed it as electoral spin. Otzma Yehudit made similar claims in September, which Likud denied at the time.
Ben Gvir did not name the countries involved, identify the officials said to have received the assurances or produce documentary evidence.
The row broke days before the Knesset election on October 27, the first Israeli ballot to follow a full four-year parliamentary term since 1988. It also followed Netanyahu’s statement on October 15 that the defence and national security portfolios would stay under Likud control, which would block Ben Gvir’s bid for the defence ministry.
Ben Gvir warned Netanyahu against seeking legitimacy from the political left or from European capitals at his expense, arguing that the left would never accept him. He said the Prime Minister’s survival depended on a strong right-wing bloc rather than on courting centrist parties, naming former armed forces chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot as the alternative he opposed.
European governments have spent much of the past two years keeping Ben Gvir at arm’s length. France barred him from entering the country after he posted a video mocking activists seized from a Gaza-bound flotilla, an episode that drew condemnation across Europe in May.
Paris, supported by Rome, then pressed for EU-wide measures against the minister. That proposal has never secured the unanimity required among member states.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz condemned Ben Gvir’s call in August for dozens of Palestinians in Gaza to be killed each night. Vice-Chancellor Lars Klingbeil said at the time that sanctions were under discussion at European level.
Brussels has kept its distance for longer. The EU delegation in Israel cancelled its Europe Day reception in Tel Aviv in 2023 rather than give Ben Gvir a platform, prompting him to accuse the bloc of undiplomatic censorship.
Ben Gvir said he still backed Netanyahu for prime minister despite the dispute.
