Even lawmakers joined the attacks on
Tomer-Yerushalmi. “I came to Sde Teiman to tell our fighters that we are
with you, we will protect you,” declared Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power)
MK Limor Son Har-Melech, in a video posted
from outside the detention center. “We will never allow the criminal
Military Advocate General to hurt you. She cares about the Nukhba
terrorists and cares about their rights, instead of caring for our
fighters, she is weakening our fighters. History will judge her and we
will judge her too.” Chanting at the soldiers and policemen guarding
Beit Lid, protesters shouted, “Traitors!”
Along with members of Force 100, the demonstrators included Kahanists, hilltop settler youth from the occupied West Bank, supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and viewers of the TV station Channel 14.
In the past, it was possible to say that these groups were a political
minority. But today, they are in the government, they run the country’s
law enforcement, and they are the face of Israel. One Israeli news headline said that
the protesters “declared war on the State of Israel,” but they are in
fact the state — a fact made clear by the support they received from
ministers and parliamentarians.
![Members of IDF unit Force 100 join a demonstration outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)]( "Members of IDF unit Force 100 join a demonstration outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)")
Members of IDF unit Force 100 join a demonstration outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
For much of the demonstration, masked
Force 100 soldiers stood directly in front of the few policemen and
soldiers trying to prevent the rioters from entering the base. Yet the
officers on guard did very little to disperse the crowd.
The police did not use horses or
water cannon vehicles — tactics that are familiar to every Palestinian,
Ethiopian, or ultra-Orthodox Israeli who has dared to protest. Even
after demonstrators breached the entrances and broke into Sde Teiman,
and later into Beit Lid, no one was arrested or even identified by the
police. Only after many minutes,
soldiers, some with shields and clubs, forcibly evacuated the rioters
from Beit Lid. During the mass anti-government demonstrators in 2023,
some protesters were stripped of gun licenses and others removed from army reserve duty after being arrested; it is clear that none of this will happen to Monday’s rioters.
‘I kicked B’Tselem’s photographer’
The terrifying sight of armed Israeli
militias is well known to Palestinians and anti-occupation activists in
the West Bank. In recent years, masked men, both soldiers and settlers,
have been main agents of the occupation’s oppressive laws, even giving
orders to Israeli police and other soldiers. Since the start of the war
on Gaza, Jewish militias have operated throughout the country under the
guise of “alert squads.” So on Monday, it was not out of the ordinary to
see the gunmen walk around the demonstration unhindered.
From the ground, it was clear that
the police simply did not want to evacuate the demonstrators from Beit
Lid. And earlier in the day, when protesters broke into Sde Teiman, the
police reportedly refused the army’s request for assistance. Defense
Minister Yoav Gallant has now demanded an investigation into whether National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir deliberately hindered the police’s response to the riots.
Since there were no serious clashes
with the police or soldiers, many of the demonstrators vented their
anger to the media: attacking, cursing and spitting on journalists, with
the exception of the right-wing Channel 14 staff, who were greeted with
applause.
![Protesters outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)]( "Protesters outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)")
Protesters outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
“I kicked B’Tselem’s photographer,”
one protester boasted to his friend, after attacking a foreign
photojournalist and being pushed aside by other protesters. “Brahnu, we
love you, but we hate Al Jazeera,” they called out to Channel 12 News
reporter Brahanu Teganya.
“It is forbidden to photograph — it
is against the law,” threatened one protester, as he approached the
photographers. No such prohibition exists, but as far as the protesters
were concerned, they are the law.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military
court at Beit Lid held a closed hearing for the ten soldiers; two were
released later that evening. This time, a large force of police officers
surrounded the building, while a few dozen protesters stood outside.
One young demonstrator held up a scarf with a Palestinian flag,
shouting, “This is what the military attorney lost!”
Hila, a spouse of one of the arrested
soldiers, spoke to the media outside the court. Due to a gag order on
information about the suspects, she refused to provide her family name.
![Protesters outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)]( "Protesters outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)")
Protesters outside the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
“My husband has been in combat since
October 7 as a reserve soldier,” she said. “He was brought here
yesterday for detention, in a humiliating and shameful way. I don’t
believe that our country can act this way, and I’m here to raise his
voice and those of the other soldiers.”
With regard to the accusations of
rape, she said: “This is a testimony of a despicable Nukhba fighter with
blood on his hands, who dared to complain, and all the county is raging
because of it. We shouldn’t forget who our real enemy is. We are facing
monsters, a terrorist organization, and I say we will defeat them.”
Two visions of Israeli violence
The source of the demonstrators’
rage, both at Sde Teiman and Beit Lid, was that Israeli law enforcement
dared to interrogate soldiers. As far as they were concerned, soldiers
deserve complete immunity — even if they commit rape. As MK Tali
Gottlieb put it: “No matter what the suspicion, once it is soldiers and fighters guarding the Nukhba terrorists, no one will detain them.”
This marks a new low point for
Israeli public discourse, though given the public climate since October
7, it is not surprising. For decades, too, in the vast majority of
cases, soldiers are almost never held responsible for committing
horrific atrocities — even those that amount to war crimes. According to multiple +972 investigations, soldiers in Gaza have been given the immunity to loot, vandalize, shoot, and kill at will – all with the knowledge of their commanders on the ground.
In the Israeli media, the riots at
Beit Lid were portrayed as a struggle between the army and the police,
or between the Israeli state and the mob. But this is far from the full
picture. The army’s policy of turning a blind eye to right-wing militias
in the West Bank and supporting the actions of lone soldiers, along
with the systematic killing and destruction in Gaza, is precisely what
has led us to this situation, whereby the interrogation of soldiers on
suspicion of rape provokes such violent protests, backed by government
figures.
![Soldiers prevent protesters from entering the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)]( "Soldiers prevent protesters from entering the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)")
Soldiers prevent protesters from entering the Beit Lid military base, July 29, 2024. (Oren Ziv)
But Monday night’s events also show
another element of this story: the limits of the far right’s power. Even
though they can ostensibly change policy themselves, such as by passing
an immunity law for soldiers, coalition members are still having to
demonstrate against their own government to make some of their most
extreme demands heard. As such, it reveals some of the tensions that
still exist within the ruling coalition.
It is difficult to say whether this case of prisoner rape — out of thousands of testimonies about the abuses
in prisons and detention facilities — led to a probe and public arrests
due to its severity, or because there were too many witnesses. It’s
also hard to say with certainty if the moves was driven by the needs to
show, against the background of international investigations, that the Israeli system can hold its “rogue” soldiers accountable.
But what is clear is that Monday’s riot represented a fight between two Israels. The first is of “mamlachtiyut”
— a national ethos that reveres the institutions of the state, that
shoots but sometimes investigates, that kills but with some limitations
on “collateral damage,” that commits war crimes but does not boast about
them. The other is one that takes pride in Israel’s crimes, refuses to
apologize for them, and seeks to abolish any legal restrictions to limit
rogue violence, even if it means clashing with the state.
The latter camp has increasingly
become the public face of Israel — and it has helped bring the country
to both the International Court of Justice and the International
Criminal Court in The Hague. International accountability may eventually
diminish the power of Israel’s extremists, both inside and outside the
government. But the path forward, as masked soldiers take the reins of
power on the streets, is only likely to become more violent.
A version of this article was first published in Hebrew in Local Call. Read it here.
