When riots erupted in May 2021 and waves of violence spread from the Galilee to the Shoket Junction—from Ramla to Acre and Lod—we witnessed an event we had warned about months in advance.
In February 2021, we presented the Israeli Minister of Public Security with a detailed plan to establish four combat brigades under the Border Police. We didn’t just bring data from hundreds of security shifts we had conducted, along with photos and evidence of protection rackets, we brought a solution. “We are on the verge of an intifada,” we warned. They wanted to listen, but bureaucracy prevailed over urgency.
Then came May. The Israel Defense Forces’ “Operation Guardian of the Walls” exposed how deep the threat ran. The riots that erupted in Israeli cities gave Hamas a dangerous sense of momentum—the belief that it could unify multiple fronts against Jewish communities. Today, we know this played a role in encouraging their plans for the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
For years, the government responded with vague promises about forming a “National Guard.” In reality, nothing was built to truly confront the threat. And then, the war broke out.
Communities left to fend for themselves re-established their emergency response teams as a desperate measure of self-defense. These civilian units became the first line of protection. In most cases, each community looked out for itself. If a town happened to have a former officer or elite-unit soldier, it had an edge. But the tragic reality is this: Communities are operating like isolated islands.
This is a dangerous break from Israel’s historic security model.
In the days of the Haganah and Palmach, the first thing established was the PASH—mobile field companies. They operated under a simple but crucial principle: Each community was a fortress, but no community stood alone. Every community was responsible for its neighbor, creating a shared defensive barrier. Reconnaissance units weren’t just there to protect their own towns but were designed to secure entire regions. The foundation of our security doctrine was mutual responsibility.
And yet today, despite having hundreds of emergency response teams across Israel, most lack the ability to coordinate with the town next door. There is no unified command structure, no system in place to turn five neighboring communities into a cohesive fighting force when needed. No framework to scale up, so that in times of crisis, 12 communities could form a battalion or 36 could become a brigade.
And that’s just the beginning of the dysfunction. The bureaucratic chaos is staggering: Communities within seven kilometers (a little more than four miles) of the border fall under the IDF’s jurisdiction, rural towns are under the Border Police, and urban areas are left to the civilian police. Sometimes, two neighboring emergency teams are controlled by completely different authorities. In a real crisis, there’s no coordination.
But there is a solution: “Shomrei HaBayit” Brigades.
The good news is that after Oct. 7, most communities have already been armed and equipped. The challenge is no longer about funding or scrambling for ceramic vests. The real problem is command and control.
We are now in what the IDF chief of staff has called “a year of war.” Every hostile front is watching and waiting to see what we have learned. Are we still clinging to a doctrine of containment, or have we shifted to decisive action? Are we paralyzed by existential fear, or are we moving forward with national resolve?
This war is exposing Israel’s deepest vulnerabilities. The lack of synchronization between security forces means that, at best, there is some coordination but no clear chain of command. Who is the one person responsible for managing an operation from start to finish? Right now, that answer doesn’t exist. And if we fail to fix it, Israel will pay for it in blood. Just as this war is a test of military readiness, it is also a test of internal security.
The Galilee and the Negev are burning—not just from rockets but from the lawlessness of protection rackets that are destroying businesses and farmers’ livelihoods. If these communities can defend one another in times of war, why shouldn’t they be able to do so in times of peace? This national plague of extortion must be confronted. The emergency response teams—this incredible resource already embedded in our towns—can become one of Israel’s most powerful tools. With the right operational framework, they can create a visible presence, deter crime and eradicate the protection racket phenomenon once and for all.
This is a revolution, and almost everything needed to make it happen is already in place. The only thing left is to do it.