‘Brink of the abyss’: Coalition turns on itself following mob attacks on IDF bases

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition turned on each other during a cabinet meeting Tuesday, hurling insults and recriminations over the previous day’s break-ins at two IDF bases by far-right activists and MKs outraged over the arrest of soldiers suspected of severely abusing a Palestinian detainee.

According to leaks to Hebrew media, Netanyahu warned ministers that “we do not break into bases” while also railing against “selective enforcement” and comparing the break-ins to highway blockages by anti-government protesters.

In response, Social Equality Minister May Golan (Likud) declared that the protesters “came to support the soldiers because the people can’t accept that heroic fighters who have been risking their lives for nine months are being arrested,” national broadcaster Kan reported. This prompted Interior Minister Moshe Arbel (Shas) to condemn Netanyahu’s comparison and insist that the far-right demonstrators cannot be allowed to “endanger the IDF like that.”

The soldiers were arrested by masked military policemen during a raid on the Sde Teiman detention center in southern Israel. After the arrests, a mob of far-right activists and lawmakers broke into the base and demonstrated, and later stormed the Beit Lid base where the suspects were being held.

Among the lawmakers who participated in the protests were Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu and MKs Yitzhak Kroizer and Limor Son Har-Melech from the Otzma Yehudit party, Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot, and MKs Nissim Vaturi and Tally Gotliv of Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party.

Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli also weighed in at the cabinet meeting, insisting there was no comparison between anti-government demonstrators and those who broke into the bases, drawing Golan’s ire and allegations of demagoguery. Hitting back, Chikli asked if Golan was representing the far-right Otzma Yehudit party rather than Likud.

אחרי המהומה בשדה תימן: מפגינים פרצו למבנה בית הדין הצבאי בבית ליד@BranuTegene pic.twitter.com/ydBtpisBPl

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Chikli then condemned Ben Gvir, saying that “there are those who support the mob and there are those who do not.”

“Those who understand the army know that this is prohibited, unlike [people like] Ben Gvir who did not serve in the army who say it is fine,” he charged.

Ben Gvir was not accepted for compulsory service in the IDF because of his far-right activism, and has previously been convicted for incitement to violence and supporting a domestic Jewish terror group.

As members of his party took part in Monday’s demonstrations, Ben Gvir released a video appeal to IDF Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi “to take her hands off” the soldiers.

Recent reports have alleged widespread abuse of prisoners at the Sde Teiman facility, including extreme use of physical restraints, beatings, neglect of medical problems, arbitrary punishments and more.

Earlier this month, Netanyahu told the High Court that Sde Teiman should only be used for short-term detention and questioning of Palestinian security detainees caught in Gaza.

Public ministerial censure

Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer of Religious Zionism asserted that the riots had no legitimacy and that arrests should be made.

Speaking with Army Radio, he said the scenes that played out at the bases “looked like a third-world country” and that “there are things we cannot afford to happen.”

Interior Minister Arbel sounded a similar note, releasing a public appeal to pull back from “the abyss” before it is too late.

“We will not remain silent in the face of the danger of internal breakdown at the hands of extremist elements,” Arbel wrote in a letter co-signed by MKs Eli Dallal (Likud), Hili Tropper (National Unity), Moshe Solomon (Religious Zionism), Meirav Ben-Ari (Yesh Atid), Efrat Reiten (Labor) and Oded Forer (Yisrael Beytenu).

“We will not stand by in the face of silence and certainly in the face of the [expressions] of irresponsible leaders, who are pushing us to the brink of the abyss,” they wrote, calling on “all public leaders to stop tearing us apart from the inside.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant was also critical of the far-right attacks on the military, demanding on Tuesday that Netanyahu launch an investigation to determine whether Ben Gvir had intervened to prevent or delay police from acting to stop the riots.

In response, Ben Gvir dismissed the allegations and called on the prime minister to probe, and then fire, Gallant over unfounded allegations that he, among other things, may have had advanced warning of Hamas’s October 7 attack and intentionally refrained from bolstering the IDF’s presence on the Gaza border.

Convening the Knesset

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid called on Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana to convene a special plenum debate during the legislative recess to discuss the attacks, stating that “we are not on the brink of an abyss, we are in the abyss.”

According to Lapid, “the participation of members of the Knesset and ministers in the invasion of violent militias into IDF bases constitutes a crossing of a red line that Israeli democracy has never known” and Monday’s events were “not another demonstration of one political camp or another” but rather “a sharp threat to Israel’s image as a Jewish and democratic state.”

Addressing the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday morning, Brig. Gen. Yoram Knafo, the chief of staff at the IDF Personnel Directorate, told lawmakers that mistakes were made during the arrests at Sde Teiman and would not recur, according to committee chair Yuli Edelstein.

“This morning we held an urgent discussion on the subject of the arrest of the fighters and the conduct of the Military Advocate General and the military police,” Edelstein said in a statement on the closed-door meeting.

“Unfortunately, the Military Advocate General chose or was instructed not to come to the committee. I am announcing right now that we will hold another hearing in which she will be required to appear before the committee and provide adequate answers regarding investigative policy.”

However, “I am happy that the head of the Personnel Directorate concluded quickly that the army’s conduct on this issue was not correct and similar cases will not happen again,” he added.

Herzog weighs in

Addressing the Galilee conference in Acre on Tuesday afternoon, President Isaac Herzog denounced the mob’s attack on the two army bases as “a serious, dangerous, illegal and irresponsible act.”

But while he came out against the protesters he also raised questions about the manner in which the arrests of the soldiers which sparked the demonstrations were carried out.

“I believe that an immediate, in-depth, sensitive and responsible investigation is required of the manner in which the soldiers were detained for questioning yesterday,” he said.

“This investigation has nothing to do with and must not have anything to do with the very necessity and authority to carefully investigate suspicions of serious acts.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.