LA City Council Considers Funding Former IDF Soldiers to Patrol Its Streets
THE LOS ANGELES City Council is considering whether to give public funds to private, armed security patrols to protect its religious communities, following a protest against the marketing of West Bank settlement properties at an LA synagogue last month that turned violent.
In the immediate wake of the incident, city council members introduced a motion to give $1 million to several Jewish security organizations that would expand their work around Jewish schools, religious institutions, and neighborhoods.
Magen Am, a nonprofit that runs armed patrol services and firearm training programs for the Jewish community, was named as the recipient of $350,000 in the motion. The group is largely made up of former Israeli soldiers, along with U.S. military veterans, according to the group’s website and social media posts, and was founded by a former MMA fighter with ties to the National Rifle Association. The majority of the former Israel Defense Forces soldiers in the group are “lone soldiers,” according to several reports, the term for individuals with no direct ties to the state of Israel who immigrated there to serve in the nation’s military.
“The fact that Magen Am was even named in that original motion as a recipient of money, that exposes the intention,” said Miguel Camnitzer, an activist with Jewish Voice for Peace. The group is alarmed that city leaders are choosing to fund individuals who served a military that commits ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.
