Behind tables laden with more than 50 assault rifles, Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, smiled at a crowd of people who had come to the coastal city of Caesarea for a ceremony to receive the firearms. <\/p>\n
The divisive politician has been crisscrossing Israel in the past weeks handing out guns to civilian members of security squads as he expands Israeli citizens\u2019 access to guns in the wake of Hamas\u2019 attack last month. The aim, according to the\u00a0Ministry of National Security, is to create teams\u00a0<\/strong>to respond to\u00a0future terror incidents. <\/p>\n The successes of some volunteer security units in southern Israel, who\u00a0were able\u00a0to push Hamas\u00a0gunmen\u00a0back on October 7 in certain locales, have attracted new members to the initiative. <\/p>\n The Israeli government says around\u00a0700 volunteer\u00a0security squads, which will operate under the command of Israeli police, have been established since then, tapping into the wellspring of insecurity in the country following Hamas militants\u2019 massacre\u00a0of an estimated 1,200 people\u00a0in Israel that day. <\/p>\n \u201cWe saw this in the first days of the war, wherever there were weapons, the scale of the disaster was smaller,\u201d Ben Gvir said in a\u00a0press release. <\/p>\n Critics see it as part of a far-right vision to inflame Israeli-Palestinian relations in the country, especially in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Ben Gvir, who leads\u00a0the\u00a0Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, pledged to give 10,000 guns to towns and cities across Israel, including Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territory, according to the New York Times. <\/p>\n Violence has spiked in the West Bank since Israel declared war on Hamas last month and\u00a0at least\u00a0176 Palestinians\u00a0have since\u00a0been killed by Israeli forces or Jewish\u00a0settlers, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. <\/p>\n The United Nations and many foreign countries consider the West Bank and East Jerusalem as occupied\u00a0land\u00a0and\u00a0therefore view Israeli settlements there as illegal under international law. But Israel says the\u00a0status of the West Bank\u00a0is disputed and denies its settlements there are illegal; while it regards all of Jerusalem as sovereign Israeli territory.\u00a0Some in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s cabinet, such as Ben Gvir and far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich,\u00a0support annexing the West Bank. <\/p>\n Abdelathim Wadi, who lives in Qusra, south of the West Bank city of Nablus, lost his brother and nephew to an attack by armed settlers as they made their way to a funeral for four\u00a0other Palestinians, he said. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no one to defend us\u2026 Our movement is so restricted, we\u2019re constantly living in fear that if we leave our house, we\u2019ll be shot,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n It added that the Israel Defense Forces is \u201cthe one responsible for arming and forming the squads in Judaea & Samaria,\u201d and not the police under Ben Gvir. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd to be clear, the minister\u2019s vision and acts are to provide security to the citizens of Israel, (if) his views were met in the months prior the massacre, the present day could have been different and safer,\u201d the statement added. <\/p>\n Ben Gvir, who has previously been convicted for supporting terrorism and inciting\u00a0anti-Arab racism, loomed on the edges of the Israeli far-right before his party and other\u00a0extremist\u00a0figures shored up Netanyahu\u2019s ruling coalition \u2013 the most right-wing in Israel\u2019s history. <\/p>\n Ben Gvir\u2019s party draws\u00a0its core\u00a0support\u00a0from Israeli settlers in the West Bank.\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Last week, Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu, who is in Ben Gvir\u2019s party, suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza could be \u201cone way\u201d for Israel to deal with Hamas. Eliyahu said later he did not mean his answer to be taken literally. <\/p>\n Others\u00a0against the mass distribution of arms\u00a0believe the government should be shoring up the police force and the military\u00a0instead,\u00a0and not risk weapons\u00a0falling into the\u00a0wrong\u00a0hands. <\/p>\n In a video shared on Ben Gvir\u2019s\u00a0Facebook page, controversial far-right rapper\u00a0Yoav Eliasi\u00a0was seen being embraced by the politician after he received a rifle at a Tel Aviv security squad weapons ceremony. <\/p>\n In addition to the hundreds of new volunteer units, Ben Gvir has\u00a0called on individuals to\u00a0\u201cgo, arm yourself.\u201d Shooting ranges and gun stores in Israel\u00a0have\u00a0seen an\u00a0increase in foot traffic as private gun licensing rules were relaxed by Ben Gvir\u00a0in\u00a0recent weeks,\u00a0Reuters reported. <\/p>\n A\u00a0press release\u00a0by the Ministry of National Security said\u00a0that\u00a0Hebrew-speaking\u00a0citizens who have military training, no criminal record, and live in an eligible area \u201ccan undergo a telephone interview instead of an in-person one, and be issued a firearm license within a week.\u201d <\/p>\n A 2017\u00a0report from the\u00a0Small Arms Survey,\u00a0a Swiss nonprofit tracking global firearms holdings,\u00a0found\u00a0civilians owned\u00a0approximately 557,000 registered and unregistered guns in Israel, or 6.7 guns per 100 people \u2013 a\u00a0tiny fraction\u00a0of America\u2019s 120 guns per 100 people. Israeli officials in October estimated\u00a0that at least\u00a0300,000 Israelis\u00a0would\u00a0be eligible for the new licenses. <\/p>\n What the country needs is a reduction in arms, he said, pointing to the issue of illegal guns fueling gang-related violence among\u00a0Arab citizens of Israel. The community\u00a0\u2013 which makes up 20% of the population \u2013\u00a0has been calling\u00a0for more measures to help curb criminal violence to deaf years,\u00a0according to Ben-Porat. <\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a gun culture because people are insecure, so they buy guns, and every local feud can turn into a gun battle,\u201d Ben-Porat, who is also an expert on minority policing, said. \u201cHowever, the answer is not to give guns to Jewish citizens, but to take the guns away.\u201d <\/p>\n One of the new recruits, educator Liat Eisner, stressed it was pragmatism that led her to join the volunteer security unit. \u201cWe are not fanatics. We\u2019re not crazy for guns. We are concerned citizens who are not willing to be butchered again,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Eisner said\u00a0she\u2019s no fan of Israeli politics\u00a0and previously protested Netanyahu\u2019s attempt at\u00a0judicial reform. But her priorities have changed since the start of Israel\u2019s war with Hamas. <\/p>\n \u201cListen, I\u2019m not going to sit like a duck waiting for someone to slaughter me,\u201d she said while filling a rifle magazine with bullets outside the event. \u201cThe only thing is us \u2013 we have to win (against Hamas). This is survival.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Behind tables laden with more than 50 assault rifles, Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, smiled at a crowd of people who had come to the coastal city of Caesarea for a ceremony to receive the firearms. The divisive politician has been crisscrossing Israel in the past weeks handing out guns to civilian <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} \u2018Causing chaos\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Go, arm yourself\u2019<\/h2>\n