A NOTORIOUS far-right Israeli minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has reported that he has got permission from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form his own armed force, which opponents and Palestinians have denounced as a radical militia meant to ratchet up the occupying regime’s brutality.
The minister has circulated a letter signed by Netanyahu among media outlets, in which the premier has vowed to raise the issue of forming such a body in the upcoming cabinet meeting, The Times of Israel reports.
The prospect of the creation of the force has ruffled feathers even among the regime’s current and former officials.
Gilad Kariv, an Israeli legislator, has criticised Netanyahu’s promise to Ben-Gvir, urging Shin Bet, the regime’s so-called internal security service, to publicly oppose the formation of a ‘Ben-Gvir law-approved militia’ bringing Israel to the brink of a civil war.
Former Israeli police chief Moshe Karadi said Ben-Gvir would be forming ‘a private militia for his own political needs’ and warned: ‘You cannot have an operational force that doesn’t report to the police commissioner.’
The Palestinian foreign ministry, meanwhile, issued a statement calling Ben-Gvir a ‘fascist’ and any armed force that would be run by him a ‘militia of racial terror that will only serve to target, kill, and torture the undefended Palestinian people, en masse.’
It also held the Israeli regime’s cabinet responsible for the repercussions of this decision, ‘which only confirms Israel’s absolute contempt for Palestinian rights and lives and is a flagrant breach of the international community’s parameters of a just solution.’
However, a rattled US president Joe Biden has dramatically escalated pressure on the Israeli regime’s prime minister to also drop his controversial judicial reforms. Netanyahu responded by saying Israel rejects ‘pressure from abroad’ in a tirade of words signalling that US-Israeli relations are in a crisis.
Biden said on Tuesday that he is not going to invite Netanyahu ‘in the near term’ to the White House, adding that Israel cannot continue down this road with its so-called judicial reforms.
This is the first time Biden has publicly spoken about the judicial overhaul, which has led hundreds of thousands of Israeli workers onto the streets in protest.
‘Like many strong supporters of Israel, I’m very concerned. I’m concerned that they get this straight. They cannot continue down this road. I’ve sort of made that clear,’ Biden said in North Carolina, where he was kicking off his ‘Investing in America’ tour.
‘Hopefully, the prime minister will act in a way that he will try to work out some genuine compromise, but that remains to be seen,’ he added.
Netanyahu was quick to fire back and tell Biden that Israel rejects pressure from abroad – meaning the US administration. ‘Israel is an independent country that takes decisions based on the will of its citizens and not based on external pressure, including from our best friends,’ he said.
However, Biden’s relationship with Netanyahu is rooted in part in his longstanding support for Israel. After firing back at Biden, Netanyahu said the Israel-US alliance is unbreakable ‘and always overcomes the occasional disagreements between us.’
Earlier in a statement, the White House called on the Israeli regime’s officials to immediately come up with a ‘compromise’ to resolve the weeks-long crisis in the occupied territories over Netanyahu’s widely bashed judicial reforms.
Israeli president Isaac Herzog also called on Netanyahu to back down on the so-called judicial reforms.
Netanyahu then announced on Monday evening that he was temporarily freezing the bill. This was after tens of thousands of Israeli workers demonstrated outside the Knesset (parliament) and launched a general strike in a dramatic escalation of the mass protest movement aimed at halting his plan.
The Israeli trade unions must now take the big step of offering the Palestinian people a partnership in a single state where Jews and Arabs will be able to live side by side in a secular state with Jerusalem as its capital.
This is the only way forward!
