Israelis Flock to Buy Guns, Pack Heat at Services

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Israelis Flock to Buy Guns, Pack Heat at Services
Up in Arms
by Ian Urbina
November 27 – December 3, 2002

JERUSALEM: Unemployment and inflation are skyrocketing in
Israel, but fear and paranoia are also soaring, and so
business is booming for gun dealers and security companies.
Israeli society is becoming so militarized that hosts of
weddings and bar mitzvahs sometimes can’t attract guests
unless they reveal the number of armed guards that will be
on hand and even what firm they’re from.

It’s not just rightists and settlers who are arming
themselves. At the Magnum Gun Store in West Jerusalem, a
first-time buyer waits in a line that runs out the door and
down the block. A 40-year-old lawyer, David moved from
Chicago several years ago. “I vote Meretz, and so do most
of my friends,” he says with a shrug, referring to one of
the country’s more left-leaning parties. “But to be honest,
I think I’m the last person I know to finally get a gun.” A
balding man next in line is growing noticeably impatient
with such dovish sentiments. He wears a T-shirt emblazoned
with an F-16 jet streaking across the front, and the message
“Don’t Worry, America, Israel Will Protect You.”

Inside the store, the aura is unambiguously
stars-and-stripes: posters of Harley-Davidsons and Charlton
Heston, ads announcing “Smith & Wesson: The American
Choice.” Other stores are no less surreal. At the
mega-mall Kirion, located in Kiryat Bialik, the Arsenal
Store sits wedged between a day care center on one side and
the remains of a 3000-year-old city named Afeq on the other.

More than a year ago the twin pillars of Israel’s
economy tourism and technology began teetering. Tourism was
gutted by the fear of violence, and Israel’s prized
technology industry fared little better after the global
bursting of the dotcom bubble. But business couldn’t be
better for some. Security-technology companies are
reporting record profits, and in Tel Aviv there are waiting
lists to buy hidden cameras. No one, however, has done as
well as the gun dealers. Some Jerusalem stores have been
extending their hours to accommodate the overflow of
customers. Hardly a recent development, the arms rush began
with the start of the intifada. In April, the Interior
Ministry reported that applications for licenses had
tripled.

And now Israelis who crave guns have a convenience that even
Americans don’t have: dealers who make house calls. On
Sundays, you can forget about trying to catch up with Itzhak
Mizrahi, owner of Jerusalem’s Magnum 88 store. He is most
likely on the move in his converted 18-wheeler somewhere in
the West Bank or within the Green Line (the country’s
pre-1967 border). “I go all over,” he says.

As a physical and economic sense of insecurity widens in
Israel, a stockpiling mentality seems to have taken hold.
“Things are not getting better,” remarks one customer who
was having his Glock serviced. “So I intend to be ready.”

Even while praying.

David Lau, rabbi of Tze’irei Modi’in synagogue and son of
Israel’s chief Ashkenazi rabbi, drew wide attention with his
reinterpretation of religious law in which he argued that
due to the current climate, Jews could now remain holstered
even on Shabbat. Historically, it was strictly forbidden
within Orthodox doctrine to work, handle money, or carry
weapons on the Sabbath, but Lau ruled that, based on the
religious tenet of pikuach nefesh (saving a life), the
faithful could now carry them. “It was a deviation from our
tradition,” Lau admitted to The Jerusalem Post. In less
Orthodox circles, guns have been present, and even
encouraged, in synagogues for some time. At ****blach
Synagogue in West Jerusalem there is a large sign pasted on
the bulletin board that reads: “Worshippers who have
firearms are requested to bring them to prayer service.”

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, points out
that there are countless incidents of Israeli civilian
attacks on unarmed Palestinians and of settlers using their
weapons to coerce farmers off their land. But many Israelis
worry more about the potential harm to one another.
Security guards complain that telling the good guys from the
bad is never easy, but that now with everyone holding a gun
it’s impossible to know whom to watch. “It’s making our job
really tough,” a security guard standing in front of the
Jerusalem Hilton says. “You don’t want to shoot the wrong
person.” The increased militarization of society has also
spurred the growth of the black market trade in munitions.
After four settlers were shot and killed by a Palestinian
gunman who snuck into Adora, a hilltop settlement in the
West Bank, an investigation revealed that the ammo used in
the shooting had come from an Israeli military depot. More
than 60,000 bullets had apparently been stolen and sold, for
half a shekel each, to Palestinian militants. And as it
turns out, three of the dealers were Jewish settlers from
Adora.

What little anti-gun sentiment used to exist is virtually
nonexistent now. Despite the fact that guns are big
business in Israel, there is neither watchdogging nor any
equivalent of the NRA. “We don’t have a gun lobby,” says
Adam Keller of Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace group. “But we
don’t have a James Brady either.” The result is that the
only real check on the flow of guns is market demand.

Israelis have always been accustomed to guns. Military
service is compulsory, and it’s common to see off-duty
soldiers in plainclothes, lounging in public places with
M-16 assault rifles slung over their shoulders. Previously,
the only vocal gun opponents were feminist organizations
concerned about firearms being in the hands of enraged
husbands. “Usually, we are against it, but we are in a
special situation right now,” says Gali Etzion, a
spokesperson for Na’Amat, a women’s organization that
formerly worked on, among other things, tightening
restrictions on gun ownership. “If somebody wants to guard
my kid’s kindergarten, I can’t say I’m against the idea.”

Israelis need permits to legally acquire guns, and there are
an estimated 340,000 legal gun owners in Israel, out of a
total population of 6.3 million, a ratio that pales in
comparison with the roughly 80 million gun owners in the
U.S. out of a population of 280 million. After the 1995
assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a Jewish
religious fanatic wielding a legally issued handgun,
Israel’s permit process was significantly tightened. But
laws were drastically liberalized earlier this year, opening
eligibility for 60,000 new civilians to apply for weapons.

Bulk permits now allow for the circulation of unchecked
numbers of weapons as municipalities, schools, and hospitals
are among the many institutions that can apply for block
licenses to arm their employees. But by far the biggest and
least monitored guns are those licensed en masse to
companies in Israel’s fast-growing security industry.

“We had to double our staff in a matter of months,” says
Robi Said of Otsma Security Services, which outfits
restaurants and caf?s with guards. Beni Tal, who runs the
country’s largest security firm, caters to high-end clients,
providing bodyguards for ritzy parties and government
officials by employing a small army of more than 1000
full-time staff and more than 600 part-timers. “These
days,” says Tal, “when people send out invitations to
weddings and bat mitzvahs, it says exactly how many guards
will be present and from what company. If you don’t
specify, no guests show up.”