Ben-Gvir, the Israeli minister in charge of police and prisons caused outrage within and outside the country with his behaviour towards the Gaza flotilla activists. He is the unacceptable face of Israel’s extremist fringe to whom Netanyahu handed the keys in an act of expediency to save his own political skin.
The IDF and Shin Bet, the domestic security agency, have become alarmed by Ben-Gvir’s success in politicising the Israel police, replacing independent commanders with loyalists who tolerate settler violence in the West Bank and crack down on anti-government protesters. He praises those who use lethal force and has fired commanders who have shown restraint. The far right increasingly views the army as an instrument for a messianic purpose: the permanent possession of biblical land in the West Bank.
Matthew Gould, former UK ambassador to Israel, writes in The Times: “The real danger of Ben-Gvir is not that he is an eccentric anomaly who will eventually be rejected by the immune system of a robust democracy; the deeper tragedy is that he is winning the argument among a substantial minority of young Israelis and that the demographic shift is on his side.”
Born 6 May 1976 in Tel Aviv into a moderate household of Iraqi-Kurdish Jewish descent, he was radicalised as a teenager during the first intifada and was unusually exempted from mandatory military service, having been deemed him too dangerous and politically extreme to be trusted with a weapon or uniform. He has at least eight criminal convictions. He draws his support from two main groups: lower-income “Mizrahi” Jews of Middle Eastern or North African descent, who have long felt ignored by Tel Aviv’s secular elite; and Generation Z Israelis, who have grown up knowing only conflict.
‘Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are fascists who are dismantling the judiciary, eroding civil liberties, destroying Israel’s international standing and dragging the country toward an irreversible, apartheid-style single state.’
This is all background to an overlooked side of Uranus, which astrologers tend to laud as one of their own kind but can have an unsavoury negative end to its spectrum.
Ben Gvir is a Sun, South Node, Jupiter and Venus in Taurus so a heavyweight personality; with a can-be-cruel Mars Saturn conjunction in Cancer. He also most significantly has a yod from Neptune sextile Pluto inconjunct Jupiter, South Node and Sun – such a yod tends to over-confidence and egotism, me-and mine to a manic degree. And its reaction point which is highly sensitive to the workings of the yod is Uranus in Scorpio which sits in opposition. When he was brought into Netanyahu’s cabinet in late 2022 tr Uranus was exactly conjunct his Taurus Sun.
His Uranus is being upended throughout this year and 2027 till the end with tr Pluto square, which will be a marker for what comes next, shifting his life onto a different trajectory. Uranus being a trickster planet it is never clear whether that will bring sudden advance or collapse.
2027 could bring failure for him with his Solar Arc Mars square his Neptune; but he could bounce back with a vengeance by 2029 when tr Pluto squares his Jupiter; which is when Israel and the Middle East looks even more stressed.
Uranus was also in effect on the Israel chart when he was pulled into the mainstream by Netanyahu’s 2022 election victory. I wrote at the time: Israel – on a dark road backwards 30th December 2022. “Israel facing a historic moment on its path with a Nodal Return and a liberating Uranus (approaching a) conjunction to its Taurus Sun has turned its face against progress and doubled down on the worst of the past. Benjamin Netanyahu, still facing charges of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, was sworn in yesterday as prime minister, heading the most right-wing administration in the country’s history, made up of Jewish ultranationalist and religious parties.”
Uranus, the liberator? North Node, the way to salvation? Or the opposite.
See also : Israel – what went wrong? 22nd April 2026
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The other Uranus which tends to get overlooked is sprinkled across Donald Trump’s path. A spotlight is usually turned on his Geminian sleight-of-hands or his bombastic Mars in Leo and heartless Mars/Saturn midpoint on his 12th house dirty-dealing-behind-the-scenes Pluto. Yet he has Uranus conjunct his North Node in his 10th and was elected this time round in 2024 with tr Uranus crossing his Midheaven. The previous 2016 election victory occurred, amongst a bounty of Jupiterian aspects, as his Solar Arc Uranus was approaching the conjunction to his Mars and the SA North Node to his Ascendant. His ‘Uranian destiny’ was emerging into the open. This time round, when he has been running even more amok than before, his Inauguration chart has Uranus in the 1st.
The positive outcomes for a Uranian type: social visionary, a lifestyle changer, freedom fighter, trailblazer, crusader for a cause, radical reformer, light bearer for the truth, a mould-breaker.
Negative outcomes: Disruptive, wilfully out of tune with the established order, law-unto-himself, explosive when faced with obstacles, unpredictable, nervy, bluntly outspoken, lawless, socially defiant, wilful, has a tendency to make irrevocable rifts in community, creating chaos for its own sake.
When Aquarius does not display an idealistic humanitarian face the tendency is to blame Saturn its co-ruler. But in reality Uranus the other co-ruler can be just as damaging in a different way.
The other Uranus which has always puzzled me is Prince Andrew’s 1st house Uranus in Leo on the apex of a yod inconjunct Mercury sextile Saturn. Contrary, wilful, lawless, rebellious (in terms of personal conduct) – definitely. A trailblazer, original thinker, a catalyst for change – not so much except for the catalyst in that he ‘unwittingly’ caused damage to the monarchy and became weaponised in the fight for victims of Epstein.
Interestingly his life was jolted against his will into a ‘fated’ life change (as is often the way with yods) when Queen Elizabeth 11 died as tr Uranus was square his apex Uranus. In addition to losing a mother, he also lost his sole protector against allegations.
Obviously a chart has many components and Uranus is only one but it can be regressive rather than progressive. Just as revolutions (Uranus Pluto) can on occasion with the best of intentions pull down repressive regimes, they can end up with worse as anarchy takes over.
Thanks Marjorie, as someone who has Uranus on Regulus conjunct NN but in the 12th.
For the negative expression of Uranus, I always think of the myth and they way the god was repelled by his earthly children, the Titans, pushing them back into Gaia’s womb causing her such immense pain that she and her son, Cronos plotted to castrate and overthrow the sky god. When his genitals were removed and thrown into the sea, the drops of blood produced the Giants, the Erinyes (Furies), and the Meliae (ash-tree nymphs) and the sea foam in turn gave form to golden-haired Aphrodite, goddess of love, pleasure and beauty and the earth and the sky separated as Cronos usurped his father’s place.
This is the cold, cruel side of the god, what you see when ideology or one’s own personal, selfish freedoms overrule groundedness and cooperation to the extent when they inevitably cut you off from human compassion, the order of things and basic decency and boundaries.