Yoel Zilberman, founder of the New Guard, pointing out that the land there belonged to the Hebrew nation 2,000 years ago.
By Atara Beck – Israel Correspondent
LOWER GALILEE, Israel – The idealism and resolve displayed by representatives of Hashomer HaChadash (The New Guard), a grassroots organization formed in 2007 to protect farms, ranches and settlements in the Galilee and Negev, demonstrate that the Zionist spirit prevails.
Modelled on the Hashomer movement of the pre-state era, when pioneers protected Jewish settlements in the land of Israel, then known as Palestine, the campaign was created by young Israelis determined to protect their communities from modern-day bandits threatening their rights to the land.
New Guard founder Yoel Zilberman, 27, spoke to foreign journalists who were taken on a tour of the Lower Galilee by Media Central, a centre in Jerusalem that provides support services for journalists based in or visiting the region.
To date, there are about 100,000 illegal dwellings in the Galilee and Negev, mostly inhabited by Arabs and Bedouin, Zilberman said.
In fact, according to several media reports, in 2009 State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss acknowledged that land theft had become a “national plague. The state lost control over land theft. The police are not doing enough.”
Over recent years, the Israel Land Authority and Jewish National Fund, among others, have been criticized for allegedly failing to fulfill their mission to protect land that was bought for Jewish settlement.
A third-generation Israeli, Zilberman’s grandfather came from Romania after the Holocaust, having lost many family members. He and his wife were the first couple to settle on the Moshav Zippori, which was established in 1949 in the Lower Galilee.
Born and raised on the moshav (cooperative agricultural settlement), Zilberman lost three friends in the Second Lebanon War. He was disturbed “to hear the then prime minister [Ehud Olmert] say that the Jewish people were tired of fighting,” he told the group. “We have to restore the courage of the Jew in Israel. I grew up believing that if we don’t take care of ourselves, no one will.
“At the same time, my father had found himself in a fight for his land with a specific Bedouin family,” he continued. “They said that they would do whatever they could to get my father off the land. They meant it. They began by cutting the fence, committing arson, burning hills, poisoning cattle…and then violence. They beat him up.”
His father, who herded cattle on a 5,000-dunam area north of the moshav, had made 240 complaints to the police about the severe harassment to no avail.
“They gave him two options,” Zilberman continued: to pay protection money to the criminals or to abandon a part of the land.
“My father was completely broken, emotionally, and was ready to give up. That’s where I got involved.”
The thieves would win “over my dead body,” he declared.
With help from his army buddies, he erected an Israeli flag on an outpost and began guarding the area. After a few months, many others in the Galilee and the Negev, who were similarly harassed, heard about Zilberman’s initiative and contacted him for assistance.
“We started five years ago with 35 guys,” Zilberman said. “Today we have 1,000 volunteers…. Yes, I am my brother’s keeper.”
According to Zilberman, the motives of the land thieves, mostly Bedouins, are often nationalistic, although not always. An interesting factor is that these often-violent attempts to drive the Jews off the land are happening not only in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, but also within the Green Line. A number of farmers have had not only their livelihoods threatened, but also their lives. Lower Galilee farmer Motti Peretz, for instance, suffered close to half a million shekels worth of damage by marauders who also tried to kill him.
The New Guard is “not connected to the left or the right,” asserted Zilberman, a secular Zionist. “We’re all Zionists; we all speak the Zionist language,” irrespective of our political persuasions, he stressed, adding that volunteers hail from both secular and religious communities. “We all have a responsibility to each other. It’s a question of values.
“Druze people are also among our volunteers because they want to live in the state of Israel,” he added. “They see they have the best life and the best education possible in the Middle East and they don’t want to lose it. This is what they tell me.”
The New Guard, a non-profit organization, now gets a small amount of government support and accepts contributions from donors abroad, he said. Expenses include, among others, insurance, transportation and training costs.
Pre-army leadership programs include, for example, lessons on Judaism and Zionism during the day and guard duty at night. In Zilberman’s view, the younger generation is “confused” and lacks commitment to the state because they have no knowledge of Judaism or Zionist history.
The participants also learn Arabic because it’s vital that young Israelis understand the culture surrounding them, he explained.
“I feel connected to my history. I know what Israel means to me and to my family. I also know there are Arabs who live here, and that’s okay too. This is the only Jewish state in the world and I’m proud of it. I have to seize the opportunity to keep it.”
Besides protecting farmers and ranchers, which is the organization’s raison d’etre, volunteers have gained a rewarding life experience. Cowgirl Ayelet Gordon of Kibbutz Ramat Yohanan, near Zippori, said that joining the volunteers in a pre-army program helped her 18-year-old son to mature and instilled in him a greater connection to the land.
“As a cattle herder in Israel, I could not manage here without the help of the New Guard,” said Gordon, who had woken up one morning to discover that 30 newborn cattle were stolen; the harassment was intense and ongoing.
“They’re willing to help and they don’t take money. Since they arrived, nothing has been stolen. It’s very comfortable for the government that they have us.”
According to Zilberman, more than 50 per cent of the population in the entire north is not Jewish; in the Lower Galilee, the percentage is 76.5 per cent, and “they’re mostly good neighbours.”
