No, you’re not hallucinating: western governments really are condemning Israel, one-by-one, without equivocation. Not because of the ongoing genocide in Gaza that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians, of course, but because of a PR stunt in which Israel’s national security minister filmed himself taunting foreign activists.

On Wednesday morning, Itamar Ben-Gvir arrived at the port where Israel had detained hundreds of participants in an international aid flotilla that was attempting to breach the naval blockade of Gaza. In a video he posted to social media, the minister can be seen mocking the activists as they are forced to kneel in rows with their heads on the ground and hands bound with zip ties. Israel’s national anthem can be heard blasting over loudspeakers, before we see Ben-Gvir waving an Israeli flag and shouting: “Welcome to Israel. We are the landlords here.”

The international reaction was swift and unequivocal – including from Britain’s foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, who said she was “truly appalled” at the video, and that it “violates the most basic standards of respect and dignity in the way people should be treated”. Representatives of the French, Italian, Canadian, German, Dutch, Spanish, Polish, Greek, Irish, Australian and New Zealand governments joined the chorus, with some of them additionally summoning their respective Israeli ambassadors for formal censure. Even the Trump administration voiced its condemnation, with the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, asserting that Ben-Gvir had “betrayed [the] dignity of his nation”.

Many of those speaking out, including Huckabee, consoled themselves with the fact that Ben-Gvir’s actions were denounced by his own government. While describing the flotilla activists as “Hamas terrorist supporters”, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office........

© The Guardian