Itamar Ben-Gvir Just Told Netanyahu What It Will Take to Keep Him in the Coalition

Hamara image via Shutterstock
Hamara image via Shutterstock

Itamar Ben-Gvir wants to run Israel's military as Netanyahu scrambles to save his coalition.

He says he will only rejoin Netanyahu's unity push if he gets the job.

Now Likud is deciding whether his price is one Israel can actually afford.

Ben-Gvir Wants the Defense Ministry and a Loyalist Running Justice

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced he will demand the defense minister post in the next government, formed after Israel's October elections.

He is not asking alone.

Ben-Gvir also wants Knesset member Tally Gotliv, who recently defected to his Otzma Yehudit party from Likud, installed as justice minister.

Gotliv has said her first move in that job would be firing the sitting attorney general.

Ben-Gvir laid out his priorities for the defense post just as directly: encouraging voluntary emigration out of Gaza and the West Bank, disarming the Palestinian Authority, and arresting senior supporters of terrorism.

"It is time for someone from outside who is not bound by the old conceptions," Ben-Gvir said.

On rules of engagement for Israeli soldiers, he did not soften anything.

"I want us to be in a situation where, if stones and Molotov cocktails are thrown at our soldiers, they shoot," Ben-Gvir said.

Netanyahu Needs Him More Than He Wants to Admit

Otzma Yehudit is currently polling around eight seats, a number small enough to ignore in a landslide and large enough to decide a coalition in a close race.

Netanyahu is racing to unify right-wing and religious parties ahead of the October vote, and Ben-Gvir has so far resisted folding into that broader alliance.

A defense ministry offer is the kind of leverage that could change his answer.

Likud has reportedly rejected both the defense ministry demand and the justice ministry push for Gotliv, though the party has not laid out its reasoning publicly.

Why This Fight Keeps Repeating Itself

This is not the first time a small radical party has held the already radical Netanyahu's coalition math hostage for a top ministry, and it will not be the last as long as Israel's proportional system rewards parties that can credibly threaten to walk.

Ben-Gvir already holds the national security portfolio, giving him command over police, and he has used it before to push hardline changes to rules governing the West Bank and Jerusalem's holy sites.

Adding the military to that portfolio would concentrate an unusual amount of security power in one minister's hands, which is precisely why Likud is reportedly balking even as it needs Otzma Yehudit's seats.

The Math Netanyahu Cannot Avoid

Handing the defense portfolio to a minister whose party mainstream Israeli politicians have long branded extremist is a real political cost, and Netanyahu knows it.

Refusing Ben-Gvir and losing Otzma Yehudit's seats on election night is a cost too, potentially the difference between a governing majority and another round of Israeli elections nobody wants.

That is the trade Netanyahu is actually weighing, not whether Ben-Gvir's security instincts have public support among Israelis.

Whether Netanyahu pays Ben-Gvir's price or calls his bluff, Israel's next government gets decided by this negotiation as much as by the ballots themselves.

Sources:

  • "Netanyahu May Appoint Extremist Ben-Gvir As Defense Minister In Bid To Stay In Power," The Daily Caller, September 23, 2026.
  • "Ben Gvir Demands Role of Defense Minister in Next Government, Gotliv as Justice Minister," The Times of Israel, September 2026.
  • "Ben-Gvir Demands Defense Ministry, Tally Gotliv for Justice Minister in Next Government," The Jerusalem Post, September 2026.

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