The charismatic extremist is using social and traditional media to blur the lines for voters between racism and disloyalty, intolerance and victimhood.

The ominous billboard on Tel Aviv's Ayalon Freeway calling for expulsions of traitors is the cunning brainchild of Itamar Ben-Gvir, the rising star of the far-Right, who, critics say, is now perhaps the most dangerous politician in Israel.

The head of the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) Party is widely seen as a master at repackaging Israeli racism to gain legitimacy and a significant power base in advance of the November 1 election. Polling pits centrist caretaker prime minister Yair Lapid's bloc of allies against opposition Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu's Right, allied with Ben-Gvir’s far-Right camp.

The billboard features pictures of Arab politicians Ahmed Tibi and Ayman Odeh, and calls for their expulsion from the country on the grounds they are disloyal. But it also includes Ofer Kassis, a hard-Left Jewish politician known for his sharp criticism of the army.

"Including a Jewish MK gives Ben-Gvir a way out if someone says he's a racist. He can say, 'Me, a racist? It's people who are not loyal who won't be here anymore,'" says Ori Kol, founder of the left-wing Mehazkim organisation, a digital platform pushing for a democratic and liberal society.

"Ben-Gvir stopped saying 'death to Arabs', he now says ‘death to terrorists'. It's more palatable to many people," Kol, who also heads the anti-fake news portal Fake Reporter, told The Jewish Independent during an interview. "The far-Right has never had such an effective frontman taking his vile ideas to the mainstream."

Kol forecasts a dark future in the event of a Netanyahu-Ben-Gvir victory. "I assume the Israeli legal system won't let an expulsion law get through, but the vibes will change. Things will get more aggressive and more [Arab] people will be killed not only in the West Bank but also within the 1967 borders. We will enter a new era when extreme right-wingers feel they can do so much more."

Ben-Gvir's roots are in the flagrant, incendiary anti-Arab racism of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who as a Knesset member during the 1980s called for expulsion of Arabs. His vision was to transform Israel into a state based on Jewish law and he proposed Nuremberg-style laws banning mixing between Jews and Arabs.

Kahane was ostracised and his Kach movement was outlawed as a terrorist organisation. As a teen, Ben-Gvir was youth coordinator of Kach. During the run up to prime minister Yitzhak Rabin's 1995 assassination, Ben-Gvir, who opposed the Palestinian self-rule agreements as a betrayal, implied on camera that he and other activists would harm Rabin. He later became a lawyer defending far-Right extremists accused of violence, hate crimes and the murder of Palestinians.

According to some polls, the joint list between Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party and another anti-Arab variant, Religious Zionism, is poised to gain 12 to 14 seats out of 120 in the Knesset and become kingmaker for the Likud party and Netanyahu. If that happens, Ben-Gvir will seek the post of internal security minister, his spokesman Yishai Fleisher told The Jewish Independent. That would give him control over the police.

Fleisher declined to answer whether Ben-Gvir still adheres to Kahane's views. "His opinion is that we have to fight jihadism in this country," he said, adding that the real issue is Arab attacks, not whether Ben-Gvir is a Kahanist. Taking a page out of Russian propaganda against Ukraine, Fleisher said: "Everyone in this country understands that we have a horrific problem with neo-Nazi indoctrination that many of our Arab and Palestinian neighbours are undergoing."

Ben-Gvir's political adroitness is perhaps most apparent in his deployment of social media and traditional media, Kol says. Every Jewish death at Arab hands means more potential votes to be harvested online.

After Palestinian attacks, Ben-Gvir rushes to the scene and goes live on social media, stressing the centrist government's alleged weakness in allowing them to take place. Last Saturday night, he sped off with his wife and children to the entrance to East Jerusalem's Shuafat Refugee Camp after a soldier was shot dead there.

"He got in very close to [Internal Security Minister] Omer Bar Lev and fought with him and that got online and the journalists ate it up. He knows how to put on a show and the young people love it," Kol says.

"Ben-Gvir provides this release when Netanyahu is not right-wing enough and [people] just want to call for revenge," he adds.

"If you're a soldier browsing on Tik Tok, Ben-Gvir tells you what you want to hear," Kol adds. One point Ben-Gvir hammers home is his view, despite a death toll proving the contrary, that IDF soldiers have their hands tied in confronting Palestinians in the West Bank.

"He conveys to them that the elite is not letting you do your job properly, they're giving money to Arabs, they're letting Arabs take over land in the West Bank, the Arab MKs are seditious and treasonous: ‘You've been let down, if you vote for me, I'll let you kill everyone you want’. He really connects with them."

Traditional media are also proving malleable to Ben-Gvir, Kol says. He has long-standing contacts with outlets, having served as a source of information for them on Hebron, where he lives, and as a lawyer on the far-Right.

"Not only is he a media genius, he knows how to convince media channels, websites and news desks all over Israel to take his information. Journalists in Israel are under attack from right-wing activists, so they give him more air time. Some challenge him but most don't because they know he's good for clicks and ratings."

If the Right and far-Right win, it will be a turning point enabling Ben-Gvir to establish himself in the heart of the Israeli system and pave the way for even greater growth in the future, Kol says.

"There will be a major shift in attitude, an emboldening on the street and in the military, a lot of money will flow in. The more money and power they get, the stronger they will be in the post-Netanyahu days. That's the scary thing."

In the eyes of Sameh Iraqi, an activist in the primarily Arab Hadash party, Ben-Gvir's linguistic adjustments present a danger to all Arab citizens of Israel. "It's cosmetics for the expulsion of Arabs. It's still Kahanism," he explains.

"He wants to expel not only Odeh, Tibi and Kassis but also those who vote for them. His messages point to a restriction of the democratic sphere and the curtailment of the Supreme Court. The entire phenomenon of Kahanism moves the political map to the extreme Right, to fascism."

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Photo: Itamar Ben-Gvir speaks to the media before the 2021 election