Civil-religious policing in Israel’s periphery

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Israeli organisation HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard) attempts to fill a gap of security in Israel’s periphery that, in the organisation’s words, falls prey to ‘agricultural terrorism’, such as theft and arson. This main mission is combined with education and cultural activities. The organisation has expanded into a conglomerate that provides security services to farmers and orchestrates countless educational and cultural programmes. We argue that the activities of this organisation are forms of (civil) religious policing in which we see a renaissance of Israeli civil religion through the convergence of both civil-religious and more traditional principles with neo-national themes and values. The religious symbols, rhetoric, and practices used by this largely secular organisation reframe and reconstruct legitimacy for its policing activities outside the state. Simultaneously, this legitimacy challenges statist frameworks of security and thus promotes an alternative civil neo-nationalist agenda.