Itamar Ben-Gvir

Itamar Ben-Gvir was Born on 6 May 1976 in Mevaseret Zion and leads Otzma Yehudit ("Jewish Power"), the Kahanist FAR-right party that holds six seats in the Israeli Knesset. He serves as Minister of National Security, the portfolio that oversees the Israel Police, border police, and immigration. His political outlook derives from Kahanism, a movement advocating expulsion of Palestinians from Israeli-controlled territory, and he has eight criminal convictions, including for incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organisation.

Ben-Gvir has been the most vocal cabinet dissenter against any diplomatic accommodation since the Islamabad MOU was signed. On 14-15 June he declared that the US-Iran announcement "does not bind us", insisting Israel retained the right to act independently. On 19 June, after Hezbollah killed four IDF soldiers on the Lebanon front in the deadliest attack since the MOU was signed, he posted "all of Lebanon must burn" and "with all due respect to the Americans, the blood of our sons is not forfeit", openly rejecting the Ceasefire track his own government is pursuing. He quit the Netanyahu cabinet in January 2025 in protest at the Gaza Ceasefire and hostage deal, returned in March 2025 after strikes resumed, and has used the threat of Coalition collapse repeatedly to veto ceasefires and territorial withdrawals.

Ben-Gvir occupies the furthest-right anchor of Israeli Coalition politics. His veto power over any agreement requiring IDF withdrawal from Lebanon, Syria, or Gaza makes him a structural obstacle to the regional settlement the June 2026 MOU gestures towards. His 19 June post signals that even if Washington and Tel Aviv reach a working Lebanon framework, the FAR-right flank will press for military escalation regardless of diplomatic outcomes.