Alas and alack! Woe be unto us, for we have sinned: Five countries have imposed sanctions on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The war in Gaza will now stop immediately, and maybe the occupation, too, certainly the apartheid.

Smotrich, who has devoted his life to studying Ibsen’s works and loves to roam the streets of Oslo, inspired by the dramas, will no longer be able to visit Norway.

Ben-Gvir, the passionate birder, will no longer be able to track the kiwi, that fascinating bird whose sole habitat is New Zealand. Those two countries, along with Britain, Canada and Australia, have decided to impose on these two gentlemen a punishment that they, the government and the Israeli public will probably not be able to withstand. Naughty, naughty, Bezalel and Itamar, tsk, tsk, tsk! The two bad boys of Israel will stand in the corner.

It is hard to know whether these countries are being naïve or cowardly. Are they just paying lip service, or do they really believe this punishment will have some sort of effect on Israel’s moves? In one regard, the move is definitely welcome. At long last,  countries are taking concrete action, not just engaging in empty talk, which could hopefully signal more to follow.

Perhaps this tiny, ridiculous step is meant only to be a wake-up call to a world that has been dozing peacefully amid the slaughter of Gaza, and in its wake will come the deluge. Yet from another perspective, one can’t help but scoff. We deserve a lot more.

These countries’ decision is based on a number of disgusting utterances by our two government ministers. They are careful not to punish them for their actual deeds. That’s not nice, Bezalel, that you said  Hawara must be wiped out. “Death to the Arabs,” Itamar?

Besides these distinctions between the bad boys and the good government, everyone else threatening to impose sanctions is also careful to distinguish between the government and the people. It’s all because of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, not because of you, dear Israelis. We want to maintain with you the relations of “strong friendship” and “shared values”. It’s not every day that you get the only democracy in the Middle East with the most moral army in the world.

The five countries that have taken the baby steps have joined the United States of the previous administration, which imposed personal sanctions on  two and a half violent settlers. That was the American contribution that preceded the war on apartheid. But apartheid looked straight into the whites of those sanctions’ eyes – and has grown even stronger, along with settler violence.

So too is the determination that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are the worst sinners. Four countries of the British Commonwealth and Norway have made life easy for themselves. What Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip is not happening because of Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. They aren’t even the main culprits. Blaming them and only them is self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

Both the Gaza Strip and Israel are desperate now for international sanctions that will lead to an end to the slaughter in Gaza. We can’t wait any longer. Mumbling like the five countries won’t suffice. The slaughter will not stop without sanctions, and the slaughter cannot continue.

The sanctions must be directed at the entire government, from Netanyahu, who is  wanted by the International Criminal Court, to the least senior government minister. Sanctions should also target the military officers and the bureaucrats who are carrying out the slaughter in Gaza.

A majority of Israelis, as public opinion polls indicate, support the slaughter and are  even waiting for the population transfer that is to come in its wake. Therefore, the pressure and the punishment must be directed at Israel in its entirety.

And we can’t move on without a comic interlude: The leader of the “Israeli résistance,” Benny Gantz, head of the National Unity party, sees the decision on the sanctions against Smotrich and Ben-Gvir as “a profound moral failure on the part of the world”. Diplomats and decision-makers, do you get this? In Israel, all of us are now Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. All of us.

Republished from Haaretz, 11 June 2025

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.