A group of right-wing rabbis announced on Tuesday they will award a grant to two IDF soldiers who were suspended and jailed by the military last month after getting into a scuffle with activists while airing far-right views.
The incident took place in the West Bank city of Hebron and saw a group of left-wing activists getting up close and bandying words with Givati Brigade soldiers stationed there.
Two IDF soldiers seen scuffling with left-wing activists in Hebron last month
(Photo: via Twitter)
After the activists refused to adhere to the troops’ orders to stay back, one of the soldiers was seen in footage from the incident pulling one of them into a bus station before slamming him to the ground and punching him. Another soldier is heard shouting expletives at the protesters.
In the last few days, organizers raised tens of thousands of shekels through crowdfunding, which will be awarded to the soldiers' families Wednesday in a special ceremony to be held in Hebron.
Behind the initiative stands Torat Lechimah — a non-profit that says is working to "strengthen the Jewish identity and fighting spirit in the IDF and security establishment".
The organization is headed by reserve officers who served as military rabbis and its stated goals include fighting "the introduction of educational content and lecturers with a radical left agenda to junior and senior leadership" and "the adoption of radical views, harming of the fighting spirit and tying of soldiers’ hands.”
The organization threw its backing behind the soldiers and their families and helped drum up public support for them, which included a condemnation of their punishment by prospective National Security Minister and far-right firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The online page of the crowdfunding campaign read: “Givati soldiers who guard the People of Israel in Hebron were punished with a disproportionate political punishment because they confronted anarchists from the far left! How long will the influence of the Haaretz newspaper and the leftist media on high command harm our fighters? How long will anarchists torture the fighters without receiving backing from the chain of command? How long will discipline and punishment in the IDF be so radically politically biased?
We are all hugging the two heroic Givati fighters - big time! And we say: enough of this abandonment of soldiers in the face of anarchists and terrorists! The soldiers and their families incurred financial losses. The money will be given as a compensation grant from the People of Israel to the fighters, and as a counterweight to the rapacity of the left."