Lies, violence and far-right ideology: The ultra-Orthodox IDF unit the US is set to sanction
The Netzah Yehuda base, April 2024
Yaniv Kubovich reports in Haaretz on 21 April 2024:
The U.S. is reportedly planning to sanction the IDF’s Netzah Yehudah Battalion due to its involvement in human rights violations in the West Bank, as reported by Haaretz. This is what you need to know about Netzah Yehuda.
This article was originally published in February 2022 and updated on April 21, 2024.
At around 9 P.M., a Palestinian family was driving down a road near the entrance to the settlement of Ofra in the West Bank. Soldiers ordered the driver to pull over. “They pulled him out of the car and beat him like crazy,” said a soldier from a different unit who witnessed the incident. “At some point there on the road, the driver started to shake, and they saw that he was passing out.”
The soldiers in question were from the Netzah Yehuda Battalion. But this story isn’t about Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, the 78-year-old Palestinian who died last month after members of the battalion handcuffed him, gagged him and forced him to lie on his stomach in the cold.
The incident on the road took place in April 2022, and this time it didn’t end in death. But it also didn’t end in any punishments for the soldiers. It was just one more “operation” initiated by a battalion seemingly beyond the army’s control – a battalion that the U.S. is planning to sanction due to its involvement in human rights violations in the West Bank, as reported by Haaretz on Saturday.
If the decision is implemented, it will be the first time that the U.S. government takes such a step towards a specific unit in the IDF.
But what is the Netzah Yehuda Battalion?
In recent years, Haaretz has investigated numerous incidents involving the battalion, previously known as Nahal Haredi – it includes a significant share of Haredi, or ultra-Orthodox, young men, as well as religious Zionist young men. The conclusion: The battalion has become a kind of an independent militia that doesn’t obey the army’s rules.
The April 2021 incident initially seemed to be fairly normal. The soldiers said they stopped the car because they feared that the driver would attempt a ramming attack. But according to eyewitnesses, there was nothing suspicious about the way the car was being driven. Moreover, half an hour into the incident, the Shin Bet security service, the police and the army’s Central Command ruled out an attempted attack. But that didn’t make much difference.
“There were people there who tried to treat the Palestinian, who was in bad shape because of the beating,” the soldier from a different unit said. “They yelled at the Netzah Yehuda medic to come help, but he refused, claiming he was a terrorist. They even refused to provide the water they asked for to treat the Palestinian. It was an insane incident.”
Many officers from the battalion were there, “but none of them said anything,” the soldier added.
The driver and his family were released after being detained for two hours. The driver was transferred to a Palestinian ambulance; the rest of the family wanted to return to their car. But then they discovered that the keys had disappeared. They asked the soldiers, who said they knew nothing about it.
“For more than an hour they searched for the car keys,” said a person who was present at the scene. “Only an hour and a half later, when the deputy battalion commander showed up and started to search, did they find the keys at their outpost, near the rooms. For an hour and a half they lied to the entire world, and this didn’t bother them at all.”
Netzah Yehuda soldiers training in the Golan in 2014
People familiar with the battalion might be shocked at the details of this incident, but not at the fact that it occurred. Officers and soldiers past and present who have served in the battalion or are familiar with it say that for years it has set its own moral and professional standards – and the top brass has turned a blind eye.
“We would go out on routine operations in the villages, and suddenly one of the guys would throw a stun grenade at a home or a passing car. It’s usually just for laughs and because of stories they’ve heard about what battalion veterans have done,” said a Netzah Yehuda soldier who left the army two years ago.
“It’s important to someone in the battalion to constantly show that they’re a different force in the sector – that we, unlike all the brigades that are replaced every few weeks, live this sector and know what to do.”
Since this soldier was discharged, a lot of evidence has accumulated that supports his claim. For example, Palestinians in the town of Sinjil near Ramallah reported that Netzah Yehuda soldiers smashed the windows of a home, broke in and threatened the family with a gun.
“There was an inquiry into this incident; the whole thing was improper operationally,” a source at Central Command said. “At the end of the inquiry, the orders and regulations were clarified to the soldiers,” but this was another incident, inquiry and clarification of the regulations with no penalties.
A defense official remembered a Central Command meeting about two years ago after another incident involving Netzah Yehuda. According to the document that followed, “Most of the combat soldiers from the battalion are from families who live in the area. This makes it harder for them to separate their personal opinions from the demands of their commanders.”
People at the meeting wondered how to move forward. One option was to dissolve the battalion and place its soldiers in other units.
“We very quickly realized that dissolving Netzah Yehuda would be a declaration of war for the settler leadership,” the defense official said. “Their view on the ground is that this battalion belongs to them, that it’s a force that works for the settlement enterprise.”
It seems no one in the military disputes this. “In routine times, the heads of the settler leadership show up at the battalion freely and talk to the soldiers,” the defense official said. “Rabbis come to the post and move around freely, give classes and talk with the soldiers about operational incidents. It’s a kind of phalange” – a militia.
Not only defense officials have reached this conclusion. In a social media post last month, MK Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism party that has six seats in the Knesset, made clear the ideological connection between the residents of the settlements and the unauthorized outposts and the soldiers who serve there.
“As a settler, I’m telling you that the residents are happy every time that Netzah Yehuda is deployed in their sector,” Smotrich wrote. “These periods are characterized by quiet and relative safety on the roads because the guys there know exactly what their mission is, who the enemy is and who their brother is. They don’t get confused, they aim for contact and create deterrence.”
Spitting on the police
In June, confrontations broke out between Palestinians and settlers near the unauthorized outpost of Oz Zion. When a Border Police officer arrived to separate them, Netzah Yehuda soldiers intervened verbally. “Screw this Border Police cop now,” they yelled at the settlers, encouraging them to attack him. A few days later there was a clash between settlers and the police in the Shiloh Valley.
“The soldiers from Netzah Yehuda began shouting at the police and security forces, ‘Don’t incriminate fighters,’ ‘traitors’ and ‘Jews are being evicted,'” said a military source with knowledge of the incident. “One soldier spit at the forces.”
Sometimes it’s not just words. “On weekends, more than once, soldiers from Netzah Yehuda showed up and took part in the violent incidents against Palestinians or security forces who came to the confrontations,” said an officer in the army reserves who served in the sector in the past two years.
“During one of the evictions at the Adi Ad outpost, the owner of the building claimed to the police that his son was an officer in Netzah Yehuda and the building was for his son’s wedding. There are crazy situations there.”
The political ideology of the Netzah Yehuda soldiers carries great weight, defense officials say. “There was an operation at a village next to Ramallah,” one official said. “In the briefing, the soldiers were told that they were passing through Palestinians’ farmland in Palestinian territory, so they had to act accordingly.”
Then one of the commanders declared to everyone present: “This is land of the Jewish people and it will soon return to the Jewish people.” According to this source, no one commented on this, as if nothing had happened.
“We mustn’t generalize about everyone who serves in this battalion,” a senior defense official added. “But we also have to tell the truth: Many of them are disadvantaged and have difficulties with their families. Some joined under pressure from their families to prevent them from hanging around Cat Square in Jerusalem or taking part in rowdiness at the outposts.”
They live in the unauthorized outposts and join the army with a clear position on the conflict with the Palestinians. “They haven’t come to change their worldview, and in some cases, enlistment is the way to fulfill their ideology,” the senior defense official said.
Sometimes it isn’t ideology. This was the case when Netzah Yehuda soldiers were called to the entrance to Ramallah in January 2021 because of a disturbance by Palestinians. The incident seemed to end properly, but Central Command received a complaint from The Associated Press, which said that Netzah Yehuda soldiers stole a photographer’s tripod.
Netzah Yehuda soldiers finishing basic training in 2012.
The soldiers denied the accusations when their commanders asked about it, but officials say the complaint reached high up in the army, so the brigade commander in the sector was sent to investigate. The tripod was found at the post; it was near the soldiers’ living quarters. “It ended in a reprimand for the soldiers, but nothing more,” said a former Netzah Yehuda soldier who knows about the incident.
Similar to the reprimands came the lenient punishment of the commanders after the death of Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad, even though the incident was described as “serious and regrettable, a moral failure of the force.” The most serious punishment: The company and platoon commanders will have to wait two years for their next command posting – apparently at Netzah Yehuda.
“The IDF is the IDF,” a former senior officer said. “It chooses to deal with the mosquito and not dry out the swamp.”
Since the release of an inquiry led by a senior officer, other top officers have lauded Netzah Yehuda. “The battalion has excellent fighters, and I don’t see this battalion as a militia,” Central Command chief Yehuda Fuchs told military reporters. “In the past six months, the battalion has been aware of the shadow cast over it, it’s dealing more with these incidents, and it immediately reports them.”
Still, most of the harsh incidents have become known only because of reports from outside the military.
No other unit wants them
Military courts have also been lenient, as in a verdict in November 2019. According to the indictment filed by military prosecutors, a Netzah Yehuda soldier attacked Bedouin at a gas station in the south “without provocation, and while they were trying to call the police.”
In addition, other soldiers from the battalion, who were in a small bus, got off the vehicle “while they were carrying their weapons and for a few minutes struck people at the scene and aimed their locked and loaded weapons at them,” the indictment reads. The result: a month and a half in prison for the soldier who launched the attack, and disciplinary action against the rest.
“The defendant is a soldier who joined the IDF even though he could have continued with his Torah studies,” the judges wrote in justifying their lenient sentence. “The opinions and recommendations of the defendant’s teachers and commanders show that this is an upright young man, a positive soldier who carries out his role and missions in the very best way.”
Another example of leniency came eight months earlier. On March 19, 2019, combat soldiers from Netzah Yehuda were indicted after photographing themselves abusing Palestinian detainees suspected of aiding a terrorist attack near the Givat Asaf outpost, where some of their comrades had been killed. The case ended in a plea deal; the ring leader received four and a half months in prison, the others only disciplinary punishments.
Commanders and rabbis served as character witnesses for the soldiers. The verdict read: “According to the rabbi’s impression, the defendant and his partner in the affair have learned their lesson. To their credit, we must recognize the sacrifice in their decision to enlist, with the whole familial and social price accompanying it.”
The battalion commander at the time of the incident, Lt. Col. Nitai Ukashi, also noted the “battalion soldiers’ complicated background,” adding that “the arrest of the soldiers was a shock that also led to the learning of lessons.” Ukashi asked the judges to be merciful “in light of their contribution and many achievements.”
But a former senior military official who was still serving in 2019 said that all the actions taken in this incident – as in the recent one – reveal the Israel Defense Forces’ fecklessness regarding the drafting of Haredim into the army. “This entire thing was born in sin to mollify various groups. There was no reason to continue with Netzah Yehuda in the way that it operates,” he said.
“There are excellent people there, fighters who have done a lot for the country’s security, and they truly see the IDF as the entryway to a better life as Israeli citizens. The problem is that every discussion on this battalion immediately turns into a political discussion,” he added.
“It’s impossible to continue this way; everyone in the IDF agrees. It’s an issue that has come up so many times, but there hasn’t been anyone willing to take the flak from the rabbis and [politicians] who benefit from this situation.”
So the idea to divide up the battalion on different fronts, which has been brought up throughout the years – especially after serious incidents – gets filed back away. “In closed discussions, the position is always that no one really wants to receive them in their sector,” said a senior defense official involved in the matter.
Netzah Yehuda soldiers finishing basic training in 2012.
“Southern Command worried about bringing the battalion into that sector; they were afraid that a lack of discipline could lead to an escalation with Hamas, and even to a few days of fighting. Northern Command feared that in the sensitive operations on the northern front, the battalion’s fighters wouldn’t necessarily follow information-security directives. Even other brigades in Central Command weren’t enthusiastic about receiving them.”
A commander who once served in the battalion and had come from another brigade says it was like discovering a different army, “an army that the IDF had no clue about how it was being run.”
One example came during the month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast during the day, in 2020. “The command gave an order not to carry out searches between 2 P.M. and 8 P.M. in places where there were no suspicions about a driver or person passing through the checkpoint,” the commander said. “This would make the fast easier for them and let them get home and eat.”
But some soldiers actually decided to make things harder for the Palestinians and searched every car. “It was intentional to mar their fast, their holiday,” the commander said. “Even a request to the senior commanders in the battalion didn’t always help.”
Another incident occurred in December 2020, when a Netzah Yehuda soldier was involved in a traffic accident where a Palestinian was killed.
A ceremony honoring Haredi soldiers in Tel Aviv in 2019.Credit: Israel Defense Ministry
After the accident, it was discovered that the soldier was driving a mastuba, as it’s known in Arabic, a car that has been taken off the roads by the Israeli authorities. Usually these vehicles are sent to the West Bank, where they’re supposed to be junked and crushed, but often they’re put back on the roads there illegally and unsafe.
The commander of the 99th Division, Brig. Gen. Avi Rosenfeld, led an inquiry into the matter. He discovered that Netzah Yehuda soldiers had confiscated the car from Palestinians but decided to keep it – with their commander’s approval. “The soldiers, even the commanders, would drive this car to buy food or for short trips home,” said a military official who has knowledge of the details. “No one hid this mastuba.”
The inquiry found that the commanders and soldiers lied to the senior commanders investigating; for four days they refused to confess. Rosenfeld wrote that this culture of lies must be dealt with, but even this incident ended with nothing but pinpointed punishments.
The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said: “The Netzah Yehuda Battalion carries out operational activities in the Judea and Samaria sector, and in doing so contributes to the security of the State of Israel. The location of the battalion is based on operational needs while preserving the lifestyle of the Haredi soldiers.
“The claims of entry by settlement leaders are not known to us. The rabbis who enter the battalion are only the rabbis who have been approved by the IDF’s accepted channels. Soldiers who commit any violation during their leave are dealt with immediately according to the law, the same as for every Israeli citizen.”
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The swearing-in ceremony of Netzah Yehuda soldiers in 2013.Credit: Ammar Awad/Reuters
Not only defense officials have reached this conclusion. In a social media post last month, MK Bezalel Smotrich, the leader of the Religious Zionism party that has six seats in the Knesset, made clear the ideological connection between the residents of the settlements and the unauthorized outposts and the soldiers who serve there.
“As a settler, I’m telling you that the residents are happy every time that Netzah Yehuda is deployed in their sector,” Smotrich wrote. “These periods are characterized by quiet and relative safety on the roads because the guys there know exactly what their mission is, who the enemy is and who their brother is. They don’t get confused, they aim for contact and create deterrence.”
Spitting on the police
In June, confrontations broke out between Palestinians and settlers near the unauthorized outpost of Oz Zion. When a Border Police officer arrived to separate them, Netzah Yehuda soldiers intervened verbally.
“Screw this Border Police cop now,” they yelled at the settlers, encouraging them to attack him. A few days later there was a clash between settlers and the police in the Shiloh Valley.
“The soldiers from Netzah Yehuda began shouting at the police and security forces, ‘Don’t incriminate fighters,’ ‘traitors’ and ‘Jews are being evicted,'” said a military source with knowledge of the incident. “One soldier spit at the forces.”
Sometimes it’s not just words. “On weekends, more than once, soldiers from Netzah Yehuda showed up and took part in the violent incidents against Palestinians or security forces who came to the confrontations,” said an officer in the army reserves who served in the sector in the past two years.
“During one of the evictions at the Adi Ad outpost, the owner of the building claimed to the police that his son was an officer in Netzah Yehuda and the building was for his son’s wedding. There are crazy situations there.”
The political ideology of the Netzah Yehuda soldiers carries great weight, defense officials say. “There was an operation at a village next to Ramallah,” one official said. “In the briefing, the soldiers were told that they were passing through Palestinians’ farmland in Palestinian territory, so they had to act accordingly.”
Then one of the commanders declared to everyone present: “This is land of the Jewish people and it will soon return to the Jewish people.” According to this source, no one commented on this, as if nothing had happened.