Far-right extremists stormed an IDF base. Their understanding of patriotism is dead wrong.
Right-wing Israelis demonstrate next to the Sde Teiman military base against the detention for questioning of military reservists who were suspected of sexual abuse of a Palestinian detainee. Photo by Menahem Kahana/Getty Images
Contributing Columnist Sruli Fruchter July 30, 2024
The mob of extremist, far-right Israelis that stormed two Israel Defense Forces bases yesterday in protest of an IDF investigation into soldiers accused of abusing a Palestinian terror suspect are suffering from a terrible delusion: that they are Israel’s greatest patriots.
But rather than supporting Israel, their vigilantism threatens to destroy it.
On Monday, military police detained nine IDF soldiers under suspicion that they had participated in sexual abuse of a Palestinian terror suspect, who allegedly sustained “serious injury to his anus” at the Sde Teiman base in the Negev, which has been operating as a detention center during the Israel-Hamas war.
Investigating soldiers for breaking military code is an essential function of a government that serves the people; it reinforces the state’s own commitment to its own morals. But for a certain cohort of extremely far-right Israelis, the idea of investigating the conduct of Israeli soldiers isn’t just wrongheaded — it’s borderline treasonous.
After protests on social media and by far-right politicians — national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir decried the arrests as “shameful” — break-ins swiftly followed. Rioters forcibly breached the metal gate of Sde Teiman and remained for several hours until police and soldiers drove them out; they also briefly overran the Beit Lid base in central Israel, where the arrested soldiers had been taken for questioning. Some 1,200 protesters gathered outside Beit Lid, with some chanting “release the warriors.”
There’s an obvious irony in the mob’s insistence on “defending” IDF soldiers while actively fighting against police officers and soldiers. And it’s an irony that indicates how hollow their motivations are: The point is not to do what’s best for Israel but to create a state of anarchy in which only their ultranationalist ideology reigns supreme.
In their eyes, anyone standing in their way becomes a de facto enemy or enabler — no matter whether they are a government official, police officer, or IDF soldier. Underlying these behaviors is the belief that even the law should not be allowed to halt their aims.
That belief is why they felt justified in attacking Ynet reporter Ilana Curiel, who needed police to intervene and protect her. By documenting their actions, Curiel challenged the mob with accountability, and that’s a no-no.
“They pushed me, spit on me, called me a slut, the Arabs’ whore, traitor,” she wrote on X. “They threw my phone twice. I’m in tears.”
Supporting the soldiers who risk their lives for Israel is noble. And I recognize that trauma from Oct. 7 and the current war can be contributing to this extremism. But expecting Israel to turn a blind eye toward abusive treatment that violates its ethical code is absurd, and fundamentally misunderstands what the country stands for.
The state’s founding promise is one of freedom, justice, and peace — a promise with deep roots in the Jewish tradition.
If a government’s rule is not feared or respected, Rabbi Hanina is quoted as saying in Pirkei Avot, “every person would swallow their neighbor alive.” Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher, author of the canonical halachic code Arba’ah Turim, explicitly writes that, “were it not for law, all the mighty would conquer” and rule.
Supporters of Israel, like myself, vigorously defend the IDF as the world’s most moral military because we believe that it is. That means we trust that when its soldiers are suspected of committing crimes, the military responds appropriately. That Israel stands by its ethical code affirms the integrity of its difficult work and maintains the justice of its statehood. As Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said: “Even in times of anger, the law applies to everyone.”
Imagine the alternative reality that’s advocated, one in which soldiers sexually abuse prisoners with impunity. Such crimes are antithetical to everything the Jewish state represents. To fight for this appalling behavior to be overlooked is to indict Israel and its soldiers as morally corrupt.
It’s that fight, not the arrests, that is morally problematic. The IDF’s chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, described the break-ins as “serious behavior, against the law, bordering on anarchy, harming the IDF, the security of the state and the war effort.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who “strongly condemned” the riots and called for “immediate calming of passions” — has for years enabled this radical entitlement with constant capitulation to his cabinet’s many demands, most notably with last year’s judicial overhaul.
There have long been warning signs that the consequences of his enablement were growing uncontrollable — perhaps most obviously, the actions of the activists who blocked attempts to deliver aid to Gaza. They justified their May ransacking of a truck and attacks on troops responding to the scene by deciding that they, not Israel’s government, ought to determine its policies. As opposition leader Yair Lapid remarked of the Knesset members who partook in the break-ins at Sde Teiman and Beit Lid: “They are done with democracy; they are done with the rule of law.”
On Tuesday, Gallant urged Netanyahu to investigate Ben Gvir’s involvement in inciting the riots outside the IDF bases. Upholding the rule of law, and demanding Israel’s government do the same, is desperately needed. Accountability is the only path forward.
We cannot tolerate violent extremism any longer. The state of Israel is a country of law and order, justice and responsibility. To imagine anything else is to foresee the Jewish state’s demise.
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