JERUSALEM (VINnews) —  Itamar Ben-Gvir loves making headlines, whether during election periods or even on a regular basis. Ben-Gvir doesn’t really care if the headlines are positive, a very rare occurrence in his case, or negative, because notoriety is never a real impediment for a politician, and can help motivate his base, who anyway do not trust the media’s treatment of the right wing MK.

However, Wednesday’s show of superiority and scorn towards the detained members of the Sumud Flotilla garnered strident international condemnation even from Israel’s friends and raised the legitimate question of what are the limits of humiliating an enemy.

The video published on social media, captioned “Welcome to Israel”, showed Ben-Gvir visiting a detention facility at the port of Ashdod where the activists are being held. He is seen encouraging security personnel as they push down a female activist who shouts “Free, Free, Palestine” as he walks past her.

Ben-Gvir is then shown waving a large Israeli flag next to dozens of activists kneeling on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs. He tells them in Hebrew: “Welcome to Israel. We are the masters.” Other activists are shown kneeling on the deck of a ship as the Israeli national anthem is played.

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, normally a staunch defender of Israel’s actions, called Ben-Gvir’s behavior “despicable”.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the video showed “totally disgraceful scenes”, adding that she had sent a summons to the Israeli embassy to demand an “urgent explanation”. She earlier said the government was “in touch with the families of a number of British nationals involved to provide them with consular support”.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has described Israel’s treatment of the activists as “abominable”, adding that he had instructed officials to summon the Israeli ambassador.”The protection of civilians and respect for human dignity must be upheld everywhere, at all times,” Carney said in a post on X.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong condemned Ben-Gvir, saying that the actions of Israeli authorities were “degrading”.

Yet despite these sharp criticisms by foreign diplomats, if one analyzes Ben-Gvir’s actions in the context of previous flotillas, they become more convincing and even logically sound.

If on previous occasions when foreign entities attempted to break the blockade near Gaza, the war was still raging and some commodities were scarcer in the region, the current situation is far from that reality.

Hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid enter Gaza on a daily basis, with one Israeli official estimating that they contain four times the required needs of local citizens. The balance of goods is sold off by Hamas, who then use their riches to consolidate power, build more tunnels and attempt to smuggle weapons. They have never kept their side of the ceasefire agreement, never given up their positions or disarmed. They continue to attack Israel’s forces near the Yellow Line on a daily basis. The “Peacekeeping” force being assembled internationally has yet to even step into Gaza, let alone attempt to take civil control and start reconstruction. This is the frustrating situation Israel finds itself in a few months after the ceasefire started.

Additionally, during the previous flotilla led by Greta Thunberg in 2025, Israel went out of its way to exhibit its kind behavior to the participants, offering them pastrami sandwiches and other water to eat and maintaining a cordial atmosphere despite the hostility of the group towards Israel. Despite this, Thunberg dismissed the gestures as a ‘publicity stunt’ and continued to lambast Israel’s ‘genocide’ in Gaza.

As an attempt to dampen the enthusiasm of anti-Israel agitators for further attempted breaches of the Gaza blockade, Ben-Gvir’s waving a flag and presentation of the flotilla participants in handcuffs and kneeling on the ground may be a more successful tactic than handing them sandwiches. It certainly demonstrates that Israel has had enough of the world’s hypocrisy in casting it as a war criminal state, especially in light of Hamas’s unwillingness to uphold the terms of the ceasefire.

If anything, Ben-Gvir’s actions may cost him foreign sanctions, but they also stress what most of Israel’s enemies are unwilling to recognize: We are the masters of our destiny. We are a sovereign state which should not be subjected to humiliating flotillas in its territorial waters any more than attacks on its villages and towns. We will treat all attacks on our sovereignty with the same force and conviction, and we will prevail against all our foes.

“No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises up against you in judgment you shall condemn.” (Yeshayahu 54:17)