Israel’s National Security Minister Celebrated His Birthday With a Noose Cake. I Wish I Could Say I Was Surprised

This is Israel, where politicians – and society – have for decades championed the racist death penalty law for Palestinians. Their 'dreams' have now 'come true,' and they're celebrating with cake.

Screenshot via Instagram/otzma_yehudit

Birthdays are a day of joy and of love. For Palestinians, cakes are lovingly inscribed with wishes for a long life, for happiness, and for peace.

For Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, his birthday is also a day of love – but love for death. To mark his 50th birthday, his wife brought him a cake with his favorite symbol on it – a noose. The inscription read, “Congratulations to Minister Ben-Gvir. Sometimes dreams come true.” The cake, of course, is referring to the recent Knesset passing of the racist Death Penalty Law, which mandates the execution of some Palestinian prisoners. As his wife unveiled the cake, a popular Israeli version of “happy birthday to you” played in the background.

Why would his wife get him such a cake? Because Ben-Gvir is obsessed with killing, starving, and torturing Palestinians. I’m surprised she didn’t buy him a little toy Palestinian that he can beat daily. Oh right. She doesn’t need to; he has almost 10,000 live ones, languishing in Israeli torture chambers, that he can starve and torture daily.

Some have told me that Ben-Gvir does this for publicity; that soon there will be elections in Israel; that he is doing this to get support from his “base” and that, as Donald Trump allegedly wrote, “bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells.” Perhaps. But what does this say about his base?