Right-wing Israelis stormed army bases. What happened, and why does it matter?
The protesters were trying to free soldiers accused of abusing a Palestinian prisoner
Israeli soldiers and police clash with right-wing protesters after they broke into the Beit Lid army base over the detention for questioning of military reservists who are suspected of abuse of a detainee, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv/AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Tempers are flaring in Israel after right-wing protesters broke into military bases, hoping to free soldiers who were accused of abusing Palestinian prisoners. Israeli lawmakers participated in and encouraged the mobs, and the defense minister is calling for a fellow cabinet member to be investigated over his role in the crisis.
The unrest broke out after nine Israeli soldiers were arrested as part of an unfolding scandal over the mistreatment of prisoners at Sde Teiman, a military base that has been used as a prison following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. The reserve soldiers are accused of sexually assaulting a prisoner, in what critics of Sde Teiman charge is a pattern of grave mistreatment there.
Far-right cabinet ministers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, condemned the soldiers’ arrests. A crowd of protesters, including members of Israel’s Knesset and at least one minister, came to Sde Teiman to protest on Monday, and some broke into the base. A mob later staged a similar break-in at another base, Beit Lid.
The army deployed troops to protect the bases, and Israeli officials have condemned the unrest and called for investigations, including into whether Ben-Gvir, who controls the police, delayed their response.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a brief statement that he “strongly condemns the breaking into an IDF base.” And President Isaac Herzog said in a statement, “We are a nation of laws.” He called on the police to “immediately step in and act to restore law and order.”
People in Israel and beyond are soul-searching over the riot, as well as the soldiers’ arrests, with some comparing the affair to historical moments of upheaval and wondering whether, in the midst of fighting on multiple fronts, the Israel Defense Forces is still in charge of its own bases. Some see it as a sign of the degree to which far-right extremists feel empowered under the current government.
“What’s happening now is a total breakdown of state institutions and the monopoly of government power, which is the basis for state sovereignty,” wrote Yaniv Roznai, vice dean of Israel’s Harry Radzyner Law School.
To some observers in both the United States and Israel, the violence recalled recent American crises. “Israel seemingly having Abu Ghraib and Jan. 6 at the same time,” tweeted Josh Keating, a senior correspondent at Vox, referring to the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq and the pro-Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The incident also recalled American unrest in that reactions are divided according to political lines. Israeli officials and commentators have focused their criticism on the arrests of the soldiers, which they view as unjust as the army is in the midst of fighting a war. Like their counterparts in the United States, they also claim that right-wing protesters are treated more harshly than those on the left — a sentiment Netanyahu reportedly echoed in a closed-door meeting.
“I don’t remember such an urgent call to protesters to restore order,” Ariel Kahana, who writes for the right-leaning Israel Hayom, tweeted regarding protests against the government’s judicial overhaul, which spread across Israel last year. “Because if we’re a nation of laws, those laws need to apply equally to everyone.”
Some Israelis saw in the incident a deadly 1948 encounter in which the inchoate state moved to the brink of civil war. Chaim Levinson, an Israeli journalist for the left-leaning Haaretz, called the break-ins an “Altalena moment,” referring to the incident in which soldiers in Israel’s nascent military opened fire on a ship carrying arms for a rival Jewish militia — seen as the time when the Israel Defense Forces asserted its authority over the use of force in the country. “Are there militant groups with political leanings that do whatever they want, or a central authority subject to law and the chain of command?” he wrote.
Feuding over the protests has extended to the highest levels of government. Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, has reportedly asked Netanyahu to investigate whether Ben-Gvir, whose allies participated in the break-in, delayed a police response.
“Even in difficult times, the law applies to everyone — nobody may trespass into IDF bases or violate the laws of the State of Israel,” Gallant said in a statement.
Israel’s military chief of staff, Herzi Halevi, showed up at one of the bases under siege, Beit Lid, and explained his decision to deploy troops in response.
“The arrival of rioters and attempts to break into bases are serious, unlawful behaviors bordering on anarchy, harming the IDF, the security of the state and the war effort,” he said in an address to troops at Beit Lid relayed by the army spokesman’s office.
Some government ministers reportedly participated in the protests outside the bases before they were breached. Some of the masked protesters also wore uniforms suggesting that they are part of the army unit charged with guarding the detainees, according to Israeli media.
Several center-right ministers issued a statement calling for a restoration of order and, without mentioning his name, for the influence of Ben-Gvir and his far-right allies to be curbed.
“We will not stand by in silence, especially in the face of calls from irresponsible leaders who are pushing us to the brink,” the ministers, from six parties that are part of the government, said in their statement. “The law and the independence of law enforcement and command authorities must be respected.”
Netanyahu invited Ben-Gvir into his governing coalition in 2022 after rebuffing him in the past, when it became clear that including far-right parties was Netanyahu’s only path to returning to power. Since then, Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister who is in charge of the West Bank, have stirred tensions within the government, with advocacy and actions at odds with the government’s mainstream ministers. Smotrich also condemned the soldiers’ arrests but called for an end to the break-ins.
The far right frequently forces Netanyahu into rearguard actions rolling back provocations by his own ministers: overriding orders by Smotrich, for example, to keep humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, or last week denying Ben-Gvir’s claim that Jewish prayer was now allowed on the Temple Mount, a change Ben-Gvir seeks that would upset the status quo at one of the most sensitive sites in the Middle East.
Even without the political violence on Monday, the Sde Teiman scandal appears to be unleashing a reckoning among some Israelis about the treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. After Oct. 7, Israeli troops arrested scores of Palestinians accused of participating in Hamas’ invasion, which killed about 1,200 Israelis and launched the ongoing war in Gaza. Many of them have been held without charges at Sde Teiman, alongside thousands of other detainees swept up in the response.
A New York Times investigation published last month detailed allegations of violence against prisoners and documented that many prisoners have been held for long periods without charges, in violation of international law. The investigation followed reporting in Israeli media, particularly Haaretz, about conditions at the military prison, and calls from local and international rights groups to shutter the facility.
But the drumbeat of allegations did not fully appear to pierce Israeli consciousness, focused largely on the war in Gaza and threats from Hezbollah in the north, until this week, when the soldiers were detained.
Shael Ben-Ephraim, an Israeli analyst, tweeted that he had chosen to ignore the reports until the extremists’ break-in at Sde Teiman.
“I dismissed them because my government sources and Israeli media denied them. My whole life I was told that the international media was out to get Israel. That they were all antisemites,” he wrote. “But today, I realized how much I was lied to. By my country. By my friends. By my media. Today, many of the people I talked to who denied these allegations admitted they were true.”
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