Itamar Ben-Gvir is Israel’s far-right Minister of National Security. John Kiriakou cites him as an example of what happens when people “convicted of anti-Arab or anti-Muslim hate crimes” are put in charge of security over their victims.[1] He describes Ben-Gvir more specifically as a convicted felon, found guilty by Israeli courts on multiple counts of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes, now serving as national security minister with oversight of security in Gaza and the West Bank.[2] Before the October 7 attack, Kiriakou says, Ben-Gvir — thinking he was “smarter than everybody else” — insisted any attack would come from the West Bank rather than Gaza, and had response teams transferred there, contributing to the delayed response.[3][4] In a separate account, Kiriakou attributes the pre-attack Israeli belief that any conflict would occur in the West Bank rather than Gaza directly to Ben-Gvir, describing him as “the new extreme right-wing” National Security Minister.[5] A co-guest on the same program described Ben-Gvir’s hate-crime convictions in similar terms, adding that he had displayed in his home a portrait of a man who committed a massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs.[6]
Kiriakou returns to the convictions as the disqualifying fact rather than an incidental one, pairing Ben-Gvir with finance minister Bezalel Smotrich — “they both have felony convictions for anti-Muslim hate crimes… and they’re in charge of the Palestinians” — and drawing from it the conclusion that no lasting peace is possible while either remains in office.[7][8]
Kiriakou also notes that the Knesset passed a law, under Ben-Gvir’s national-security portfolio, reinstating the death penalty specifically for Palestinian detainees — the first such measure since Israel abolished capital punishment in 1956, with the sole exception made for Adolf Eichmann.[9]
The West Bank misdirection
John Kiriakou places Ben-Gvir at the centre of the failure to act on warnings before 7 October. Settlers along the Gaza border spent two weeks reporting to the Ministry of National Security that Palestinians were flying kites, releasing balloons and checking wind speeds, with unusual walkie-talkie chatter. Ben-Gvir’s answer, in Kiriakou’s account, was that nothing was happening in Gaza and the next attack would come in the West Bank — and he ordered government assets used against possible cells there instead.[10][11]
On the placement of the warning
Discussing the intelligence that preceded October 7, Kiriakou says Ben-Gvir “insisted that the attack was coming in the West Bank” — and declines to treat that as an error: “I believe that the man is not that stupid. He knew it was coming in Gaza.” Asked to rank him, Kiriakou puts him below Netanyahu: “He’s worse.” He describes Ben-Gvir as “supposed to be the big mastermind” of Israeli security and “really just a war criminal.”[12]
Named in the nuclear warning
In October 2025 Kiriakou named Ben-Gvir, with Bezalel Smotrich, as part of a governing far right he describes as convicted of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes and “crazy enough to use nuclear weapons” — the thing he says should be “our next great fear.”[13] On his reading the only brake is sustained American pressure, and he could not tell whether the pressure then being applied was policy or a passing gesture.[14]
The champagne toast
After the passage of the Knesset death penalty law, Ben-Gvir was photographed and filmed toasting it with champagne, saying — while laughing — “We will count them, the hanged Palestinians, one by one.” The episode was put to John Kiriakou on the DeProgram show, and his characterisation of the government it represents was direct: “This is a bloodthirsty government.”[15]
During the 2026 Iran war, Kiriakou reported that Ben-Gvir’s house had been targeted by Iran and that he was, on the latest reporting available, critically injured — part of a pattern he described as Iran adopting Israel’s own decapitation tactics.[16] That episode is treated at Netanyahu in hiding.