Sinead O'Connor once blasted Israel's Ben-Gvir as a 'failure' for 'terrorising children'

A slew of death threats from far-right Israeli extremists forced recently deceased singer Sinead O'Connor to cancel a gig in Jerusalem in 1997, and also brought her into confrontation with Itamar Ben-Gvir - a Jewish hardliner who now holds office as Israel’s National Security Minister.

O'Connor was due to perform at a festival organised jointly by Israeli and Palestinian women's groups named 'Sharing Jerusalem: Two Capitals for Two States' - a sentiment which angered Jewish ultranationalists who see the holy city as belonging to Jews only.

The campaign against O'Connor’s concert was led by the Ideological Front, an offshoot of the outlawed racist Kahanist movement of Jewish supremacist rabbi Meir Kahane. Britain and Ireland's embassies in Tel Aviv received threats against O'Connor's life, forcing the Irish star to cancel her performance.

Ben-Gvir, a member of the Ideological Front at the time, went on Israeli radio then to boast of the result.

Sinead O’Connor said this during one of her first interviews in 2019 - on Irish late-night TV no less - after reverting to Islam the year prior and changing her name to Shuhada Sadaqat 👇

The celebrated Irish singer died yesterday, 26 July, at the age of 56

🎥: @alexander_durie pic.twitter.com/RiqoGWyJQm

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) July 27, 2023

"Due to us she is not coming," Ben-Gvir said at the time. "We are calling the pressure we put on her not to come a success," he added, without taking direct responsibility for the threats.

O'Connor later addressed the threats in a message to Ben-Gvir published by media outlets.

"God does not reward those who bring terror to children of the world," O’Connor said in response to the threats. "So you have succeeded in nothing but your soul’s failure."

Years later, O'Connor would cancel a concert in the Israeli city of Caeserea over Israel's brutal 2014 bombardment of Gaza that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians.

"Nobody with any sanity, including myself, would have anything but sympathy for the Palestinian plight," the singer later said regarding the cancellation.

On Thursday, following the O'Connor's death in London, Ben-Gvir's office acknowledged the campaign against her, however made no mention of the death threats.

"Indeed, Minister Ben-Gvir said he would protest against the show," his office said in a statement quoted by AP. "The show was canceled due to the work of thousands of demonstrators."

Ben-Gvir's office added that despite the minister's previous criticism of O'Connor and her conversion to Islam, he would try to remember her "favorably because of the difficult life she lived".

Ben-Gvir is a hardliner with past convictions for support of terrorism and incitement against Palestinians. 

In recent days, the minister has led provocative settler raids on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem - a site that Israeli extremists seek to convert into a Jewish temple.