Zarbiv rose to prominence through videos documenting his personal campaign of destruction in Gaza, often accompanied by inflammatory rhetoric. He has served hundreds of days on reserve duty as a D9 armoured bulldozer operator in Gaza and has been deployed on similar missions in southern Lebanon. In January 2025, he boasted of demolishing '50 homes a week' in Gaza.
Cabinet minister Miriam Regev said she chose Zarbiv for the role because of his 'inspirational' dual leadership as a rabbi and soldier. However, Zarbiv has been censured by Israel's judicial watchdog for extremist statements. The rights group B'tselem said his selection marks an official endorsement of the dehumanisation of Palestinians and systematic destruction of Palestinian life. Haaretz newspaper said that official endorsement undermines Israel's defence against charges of genocide and incitement to genocide in international courts.
You will have nothing left. We will flatten you and destroy you.
Ironically, Zarbiv's own home, built on private Palestinian land in an illegal settlement in occupied Palestine, has been under a demolition order for illegal construction since 2000, which has never been enforced. The term 'to Zarbiv' has entered Hebrew slang, meaning to destroy.
They have nothing to return to in Rafah and Jabalya ... tens of thousands of families have no papers, childhood photos, ID cards, no homes. They have nothing.
This selection sends a clear message to the citizens of Israel and the entire world– in Israel, genocide, ethnic cleansing and war crimes are the 'spirit of the nation'.
A country that chooses to honour and esteem someone who has become a symbol of the flattening of Gaza is telling the world that it sees him and his values as deserving respect and as representing the state.
Zarbiv indeed deserves to light an independence day torch: not because he is worthy of the honour, but because Israel has lost its way, its moral compass and its conscience.