Itamar-Ben Gvir's controversial plans
Even the sound of "National Guard", the body that right-wing extremist politician and minister Itamar Ben-Gvir hopes to put in place in Israel, is alien to Israeli ears. In Hebrew, the Israeli military is known as the "Army for the Defence of Israel", and the police forces call themselves "Israel's Police". A National Guard, by contrast, is something that is more commonly associated with authoritarian regimes, especially in the Arab states in the region. The right wing in Israel tends far more than the left to explicitly use the term "national" when naming state institutions.
Benjamin Netanyahu's party colleague Ariel Sharon was granted a "Ministry of National Infrastructures" in 1996, and Netanyahu established the "National Security Council" three years later. And yet, even during Netanyahu's long term in office, the "nationalisation" of ministries was limited – only a "National Minister for Digital Affairs" was added.
Itamar Ben-Gvir's political career began in the far-right "National Union" party. When Netanyahu brought him into the government in late 2022, Ben-Gvir had himself declared "Minister of National Security" – an office previously known as "Domestic Security".
Ben-Gvir's fellow party members from "Otzma Yehudit" (Jewish Strength) are in charge of similar ministerial portfolios: "Settlement and National Tasks" and "Negev, Galilee and National Resilience". The nationalist rhetoric is in fact a distinguishing feature of this party, and Ben-Gvir makes no secret of the fact that he would relish the role of commander-in-chief of a "National Guard".
A national guard already exists
Such a body has in fact already been in place in Israel since June 2022, but it bears the name "The Israeli Guard". Ben-Gvir's predecessor Omer Bar-Lev and then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett established it upon an urgent recommendation made the previous year by high-ranking military experts.
They had observed with concern that the Israeli police were utterly overwhelmed by the violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in May 2021, particularly in mixed Israeli cities, and therefore recommended that army reservists should reinforce police in emergencies, as well as assisting the border guards operating in Israel's heartland.
Bennett and Bar-Lev decided to recruit chiefly volunteers for the Border Patrol units, which are under the command of the Israeli police. There was talk of several thousand people, but only around 600 could be hired.
This is another reason why Ben-Gvir and Police Chief Kobi Shabtai, who reports to him, announced at a press conference in January not only a massive expansion and much better pay for the police force, which has been suffering for years from an increasingly dramatic shortage of personnel, but also the establishment of a "National Guard", which was already part of the coalition agreement between Netanyahu's Likud and Ben-Gvir's party.
The "Israeli Guard" already in formation, which was not even mentioned at the press conference, would then obviously be shelved.
The proposal involved doubling the number of Border Patrol units and recruiting ten thousand volunteers with combat experience.
Who would be in command?
Ben-Gvir and Shabtai underscored that the National Guard would be under the direct command of Shabtai in his capacity as police chief – in response to public fears that Ben-Gvir, convicted of sedition and of supporting a terrorist organisation, was seeking to acquire a "private militia".
After January, however, little came of these plans. After wresting written confirmation of the founding of the National Guard from Netanyahu in return for his agreement to postpone the controversial judicial reform, Ben-Gvir submitted his official proposal for the Guard on 29 March.
The three-page paper now refers to the body as the "National Guard for Israel" – and it does make mention of the "Israeli Guard", albeit as an unfinished project.
Ben-Gvir's draft contains hardly any specifics on the structure of the Guard. It will evidently include both "regular forces and tactical units" charged with fighting terrorism nationwide both routinely and in crises while strengthening control over the public order. The possibility of placing certain border guards under the direct command of the National Guard will also be explored.
Exaggerated scenarios
Such questions, in particular those concerning the responsibilities of the National Guard and the minister in charge, are to be discussed by a commission convened by the director of the Ministry of National Security, as the Israeli government decided earlier this week. A budget for the project, which is to be culled from the budgets of other ministries, has also been approved, although its actual amount is as yet unclear.
The question that is currently agitating the Israeli public the most, of whether the "National Guard for Israel" will be under Ben-Gvir's direct command, was probably deliberately left open by him in his draft. Police Chief Shabtai has denounced such a command structure as "dangerous" and rejected it just as strongly as has Ronen Bar, head of the Israeli Security Agency, or Shabak.
In addition, both Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Judicial Advisor to the Ministry of National Security Ariel Sizel have raised serious legal concerns with respect to the government's resolution.
Despite the general lack of clarity about the character and structure of the new National Guard, critics in Israel cannot be dissuaded from the notion that it would amount to Ben-Gvir's "private militia". During the most recent protests against Netanyahu's government, demonstrators dressed as "guardsmen" marched in lockstep in Tel Aviv and loudly pledged their loyalty to the "tyrant".
The Arab media meanwhile furnished exaggerated scenarios of what could come to pass. "The National Guard in Israel – Ben-Gvir prepares for a new Nakba", was the alarmist message broadcast by the Qatari channel "Al-Jazeera".
© Qantara.de 2023
Translated from the German by Jennifer Taylor