Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said on Friday that if Ireland’s “antisemitic” prime minister is calling for countries to sanction him, then “I must have done something right.”
The Irish government earlier in the day issued a travel ban for Ben-Gvir, as well as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, two figures considered to represent the right end of the spectrum within the Israeli coalition.
“Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan, [it] is my understanding, has instructed his officials to prohibit any travel into Ireland [for] both minister Ben-Gvir and minister Smotrich,” Prime Minister Micheál Martin told reporters on Friday in Tivat, Montenegro, The Irish Times reported.
The Irish premier said that statements made in the past by the Israeli ministers “amount to a desire to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine.
“In my view, their behaviour justifies sanctions at E.U. level as well, and that’s something that we will raise; whether we can get sufficient support across the European Union is a different matter,” Martin continued, according to the paper.
The Irish measure comes on the backdrop of a recent video released by Ben-Gvir in which he taunts activists who were arrested on a Gaza-bound flotilla for attempting to breach the blockade imposed by the Israel Defense Forces to prevent Hamas and other terrorist organizations from obtaining weapons and other supplies for their activities.
The video shows Ben-Gvir visiting a detention center in which the activists were detained. Carrying an Israeli flag, he is seen telling a detainee: “Am Israel Chai,” Hebrew for “the People of Israel lives.” He told others: “Welcome to Israel.”
The film triggered a media storm, with Israeli officials publicly condemning Ben-Gvir, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said that the former’s conduct was “incompatible with Israel’s values and norms.”
On May 24, France declared Israel’s national security minister persona non grata, with Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot citing “unacceptable actions vis-à-vis French citizens and European aboard the Sumud Global Flotilla” as the rationale for the ban.
