6. Be wary of paramilitaries.
When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.
-Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
Ben-Gvir: Building a National Israeli Militia
The Ministry of National Security: Political Context
Israel is changing rapidly in front of our eyes as the current government led by Benjamin Netanyahu takes more and more steps against democracy and the rule of law. The cruel and bloody war run by Israel in Gaza has made Israel the target of major criticism by other governments and international institutions, including the accusation of Genocide brought by South Africa to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The citizens in Israel are mostly deaf to moral critiques of the Palestinian death toll, but their trust in their government’s attempts at ending the war and returning the Israeli hostages is completely broken. The general mainstream public in Israel and most of the mainstream media channels all agree that the war continues only to serve the survival of Netanyahu’s regime, and they’re not quiet about it. There have been greater protests during the last year and a half, since this government started, than any other time in the history of Israel, with demonstrations every week in almost every city and town.
Even when experiencing the fear of an endless war fought for personal interests, one cannot be unconcerned about what is being done under its smoke by the minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is a resident of Qiryat Arba, one of the most extreme illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. Ben-Gvir started his career as a known admirer and follower of Rabbi Meir Kahane, the politician who was banned from the Israeli parliament for his openly racist opinions and statements, and of Baruch Goldstein, the Jewish terrorist who opened fire on Muslim men praying in the sacred site of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. The picture of the terrorist who murdered 29 people in cold blood was proudly hung on the main wall in Ben-Gvir’s living room, as exposed by a journalist shortly after the latest elections. Ben-Gvir has been known since his early life and throughout his career for acts of political bullying and political violence. He has had dozens of criminal files brought against him, for which he was charged 46 times in criminal court, of which he was convicted at least eight times. One or more of his convictions concerned his support of Jewish terrorism.
No one could have guessed that this convicted felon and terrorist supporter would be put in charge of the police, least of all the police themselves. Netanyahu needed his support both for holding down his government and as a shield from the results of his own corruption charges. Once Ben-Gvir had been made the head of the ministry of home security, he changed its name to “the Ministry of National Security.” This change was the first sign for the subsequent changes he intended to bring about, comprising a long line of steps against the professionalism, objectivity and independence of the police force.
Ben-Gvir’s Steps in Taking Over the Civil Armed Forces
The first step was changing the law defining the police’s authority. This change allowed the minister to interfere with decision-making and practices in the police force, as well as dismissing the ban on the use of police for political purposes.
The second step was appointing a long list of his supporters to command positions. Units whose commanders were considered Ben-Gvir supporters, like the border police, for instance, started acting independently and without coordination with the rest of the police units, including the chief of police and the general command. Commanders of police stations have surprisingly found that these units take part in questionable and debatable activities inside their jurisdiction, and they must take the heat and deal with the civil unrest which results from these uncoordinated actions.
Dozens of high-ranking officers have resigned because the police force is becoming a dangerous body now being used for political reasons.
For the third step, Ben-Gvir started to personally instruct and command police officers who were closer to him politically, bypassing their superiors. Professional commanders who still act with respect to the rule of law and to the chain of command have found themselves ridiculously irrelevant faced with actions and maneuvers initiated by their subordinates without their knowledge or approval, under the Ben-Gvir’s instructions. As a result, the police are experiencing a crisis in leadership; even the radicals who hate the police usually are now worried for how bad it could get.
Consequently, many veteran high-ranking police officers have resigned. The investigative TV show Zman Emet on Channel 11 exposed on March 27 that dozens of high-ranking officers resigned during Ben-Gvir’s first six months on the job, feeling that their life’s work has been tampered with and that the police force they served loyally throughout their lives was becoming a dangerous body now being used for political reasons that have nothing to do with serving the public.
Political Policing
The political uses of the police include sending police officers to arrest citizens who film settler leaders or verbally criticize them in public. Border Police have also been sent to confiscate flags from the Nazareth branch of the political party Hadash, starting with Palestinian flags and then also red flags for the May 1 demonstration. Most recently, when military police came to arrest soldiers in the Sde Teiman detention camp following allegations that they had sexually assaulted Palestinian detainees, some soldiers and dozens of settlers attempted to block them from performing the arrests. When police were called in to help secure the arrests, they refused. No citizen was arrested for assaulting military officers, despite it being well-documented and published online.
In 2023, at the beginning of the protests against the government’s attempted judicial overhaul, the official stance of the County Commander of Tel Aviv was that it is the police’s job to guard the freedom of speech and protest. Still, one of his officers was documented assaulting the protesters harshly, using stun grenades that can risk lives when used in short range. The officer had a pile of complaints against him, and the police did not back him up. Three months ago, Ben-Gvir fired the commander and made the rogue officer the commander of Tel Aviv center station, which is responsible for biggest number of protests in the city and maybe in the whole country. He is now able to determine the policy regarding protests. The rogue officer is now charged with acts of recklessness and negligence with explosives, but that doesn’t matter to the new logic of command in the police under Ben-Gvir; felons are welcome, as long as they support him and show a negative approach to the Israeli left.
After the terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, protests against the war were no longer being approved, and small protest vigils were dispersed violently. Protest organizers asked for official permission to demonstrate for peace and ceasefire, and requests were denied. The author of this text filed such a request in November along with an Arab city council member from Jaffa, and after the request was denied, they petitioned the Supreme Court of Justice with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. The judges scolded the police and stressed that there is no authority for limitation of freedom of protest with regards to the content of the protest. However, they did agree to police demands to limit the number of participants and location. This repeated experience implied that any permit to demonstrate against the war necessitated a petition to the court each time. Arab cities were not permitted to hold protests even when petitioning the courts.
Additional petitions to Supreme Court against the police limitation of the freedom of protest soon followed. The police began waiting at the entrance to our court-approved protests and demanded to check any sign and banner before entry, appointing a police officer to be the political censor, deciding which signs would be left out. The banned signs carried slogans such as: “Food Not Bombs,” “One Massacre Doesn’t Justify Another” and “Thou Shall Not Murder.” The Supreme Court banned the police from politically examining signs at protests, but the ban had no effect on the policemen sent to the subsequent protests. Police officers soon learned that what was decided in court was not relevant to their career, and that career progression depended on the whims of Ben-Gvir, who might see the disregard of law and courts as supporting him.
‘Readiness Units’
If the damage to the police work wasn’t enough, another aspect of Ben-Gvir’s policy also contributed to the threat to the public order in Israel. Under the Ministry of National Security, he rapidly and rashly widened the scope of volunteer armed units throughout the country. The initiative sprung up in the previous government, which passed a law authorizing the foundation of a National Guard of volunteers. But the implementation of the law during Ben-Gvir’s time in office has been unprecedent and irresponsible. “Readiness Units” with different names were officially founded in cities across the country, made up of armed citizens.
Ben-Gvir has established local centers in which live ammunition is distributed to his supporters.
These units were an excuse to hand out live ammunition to Ben-Gvir supporters. These “units” had no official training program and no overview of disciplinary systems, both of which are direly needed in the armed forces. Ben-Gvir’s men moved from city to city, opening a weapon allocation point in each, and invited citizens who were close to them or to their political approach, arming them with guns and rifles. A journalistic investigation showed that people with criminal records were offered help in avoiding the restrictions to receive a weapon just the same. Ben-Gvir’s office was also heavily involved in mass illegal issuance of firearms licenses, which led to a series of 14 arrests and detentions of employees of his office involved with bribes and corruption around this illegal distribution.
From a Brutally Violent Police Force to a Dangerous Militia
Admittedly, the critiques against the malfunction of the Israeli police have been significant long before Ben-Gvir’s ministry, which I have personally witnessed often as a lawyer who specializes in police brutality. The anger against the police has been growing for years. Ultra-Orthodox, Ethiopian Jews, Arabs, expatriates of the Soviet Union, people with disabilities, immigrants and other oppressed minorities can all testify in great detail how the police targets them with disproportionate violence. All agree that the DIPI (Department for Police Investigations), the official unit that investigates police crime, is dysfunctional and redundant, and that there is no alternative which oversees police misconduct and violence.
In the past decade, varied civil resistance has risen up against the violent, sexist and racist practices of the police. The settlers and the right wing used to suffer from these practices no less than the minorities and the left wing, as did anyone who was not white, upper class and non-political. The wide scope of victims brought a feeling that things must change soon, and a multi-party lobby in the parliament has been founded and began to work in advocacy for policy change.
Today, as the head of the ministry of National Security, Ben-Gvir has changed the situation dramatically. It’s apparent that the police force identifies itself with a specific political group, who receives immunity. In these conditions, one cannot stand against the systematic targeting of Ethiopians or the neglect of security of Arab citizens as they previously did, because the police don’t even pretend to defend them anymore.
Increasingly, people in Israel believe that Ben-Gvir is preparing for a yet more extreme scenario.
Crime in the Arab population in Israel has risen to an all-time peak, with 26 murders in July alone and the lowest arrest rate ever. The number of Arab citizens killed in a criminal context in the first half of 2024 is the same as all murders in 2023 and is expected to more than double. Meanwhile, Ben-Gvir closed all projects aimed at reducing crime amongst Arab citizens of Israel. It’s been made clear that National Security does not include Arab citizens of Israel, who make up approximately 20% of the population.
A warning for the future
Increasingly, people in Israel believe that Ben-Gvir is preparing for a more extreme scenario. The increasing clashes between the government and the judicial system might push people and bodies to choose sides. With a broken police force with no professional leadership and independence that acts on behalf of his orders on one hand, and units of undisciplined armed civilians on his other hand, Ben-Gvir arrives at this rupture ready to battle.
