La Familia and Ben-Gvir’s National Guard: the violent underbelly of Israel’s far Right

The pause on judicial overhaul may come at the cost of increased violence and racism, with street attacks by far-Right counterdemonstrators and Ben-Gvir given control over a new National Guard.

Competing protests over Israel’s judicial overhaul sparked several violent incidents this week.

Reporter Yossi Eli suffered a fractured rib and possibly an injury to his spleen after he was hit with a stick by a member of La Familia, the racist far-Right soccer fan club from Jerusalem, during a counterprotest in support of judicial overhaul on Monday.

A group of boys hit an Arab taxi driver, a protester against the judicial overhaul was thrown to the ground and kicked by men in ski masks, and far-Right demonstrators clashed with police at Jerusalem’s Sacher park.

Three other men were arrested for posting a video on social media indicating their intentions to harm pro-democracy demonstrators in Jerusalem. The suspects, from the central Israeli town of Yavneh, recorded themselves with a gun and eggs while travelling to Jerusalem on Monday.

Far-Right demonstrators also waved the clenched fist flag of Kach, the ultra-Right, racist party founded by Meir Kahane, which was banned in 1994.

Fear of increased violence associated with Israel’s civil crisis are mounting now that the Right has taken to the streets in counterdemonstrations to the massive pro-democracy protests which prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to pause the judicial overhaul process on Monday.

The counterdemonstration on Monday was the first major demonstration by supporters of the judicial overhauls, after three months of weekly protests by the 66% of Israelis who oppose Netanyahu’s planned judicial overhaul.