His campaign forced Sinead O'Connor to scrap a 1997 Jerusalem concert. Now he is a Cabinet minister
When death threats forced Irish pop singer Sinead O’Connor to call off a peace concert in Jerusalem in the summer of 1997, a young man named Itamar Ben-Gvir took credit for the campaign against her
JERUSALEM — Death threats forced Irish pop singer Sinead O'Connor to call off a peace concert in Jerusalem in the summer of 1997. At the time, a young man named Itamar Ben-Gvir took credit for the campaign against her.
Today, he is Israel's national security minister.
The transformation of Ben-Gvir from a fringe Israeli extremist trying to take down O'Connor's coexistence-themed concert to a powerful minster overseeing the Israeli police force reflects the dramatic rise of Israel's far-right.
O'Connor, a spirited singer and frequent source of controversy who rocketed to fame in 1990, died on Wednesday in London. While most people remember the star for her hit cover of Prince’s ballad “Nothing Compares 2 U" or the uproar that followed her ripping up a photo of Pope John Paul II on live TV, many Israelis on Thursday recounted an open letter she wrote castigating Ben-Gvir.
Incensed after hearing Ben-Gvir, who was then 21, boast in a radio interview that he had succeeded in scaring her away from Jerusalem, she sent the letter to The Associated Press and other news organizations.
«God does not reward those who bring terror to children of the world,» O’Connor wrote in a message addressing Ben-Gvir. “So you have succeeded in nothing but your soul’s failure.”
On June 16, 1997, O’Connor — worried for her safety and her children — backed out of the concert organized by Israeli and Palestinian women's groups that had sought to promote Jerusalem as a capital for both people. Named «Sharing Jerusalem: Two Capitals for Two States,» the
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