Israeli soldiers wearing donated tactical helmets pose for a photo. The donations were made by a American civilian initiative known as Unit 11741. (Courtesy of Unit 11741)

(JTA) — For nearly a year, American Jews have flooded Israel with donations for soldiers fighting in Gaza, even as the Israel Defense Forces said such supplies were not needed. 

Now, the Israeli military has announced a crackdown against the flow of unauthorized donations, setting up a potential showdown with some of its most generous supporters.

Tamar Yadai, the general commanding Israel’s ground forces, has ordered “utmost enforcement and maximum punishment” to combat the donations, according to a memo released on Monday.

The consequences will be doled out even if the donations are made by the parents of soldiers, said the memo, which circulated on Israeli military networks and which the Jewish Telegraphic Agency obtained. 

“The phenomenon that has emerged during Operation Swords of Iron is unacceptable and goes against the values of the Israel Defense Forces,” the memo said, using the official Israeli name for the war. 

The memo explains that the rule against grassroots equipment donations is meant to protect soldiers from going into battle with helmets and body armor that aren’t up to military standards.

The nonprofits, however, say that they ensure their donations are of the highest quality, including through ballistic testing, and that they meet the technical requirements of the soldiers. The nonprofits all say that the real danger to soldiers comes from substandard gear issued to the soldiers by the military itself. They point to examples of soldiers who have been sent into Gaza with dented helmets dating to the 1970s. 

Striking a defiant tone, Unit 11741, an American initiative to equip Israeli soldiers with helmets and other items, has pledged to cover the legal expenses of soldiers arrested in Yadai’s crackdown. No such arrests are yet known. 

“Do not worry, your life is more important than anything General Yadai can do sending police after you,” said Daniel Mael, the head of Unit 11741, in a video reacting to the crackdown. “We have your back. We are going to help you 100%.”

The crackdown — and the defiant response — reflect a persistent and growing gap between the Israeli military and donors who seek to support its troops. The military has maintained throughout the war with Hamas that reports of shortages are false despite massive demand from battlefield commanders. But donors, many of whom are in the United States, say the military’s official position undermines the effort to keep soldiers safe. 

The divide has increasingly led to illegal activity on the part of donors who say all they want to do is ensure that soldiers, including some who are their own relatives, have all they need to fight effectively and safely against Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah across the northern border with Lebanon. 

Earlier this month, volunteers who have sent millions of dollars’ worth of donated military equipment to Israeli soldiers called an urgent Zoom meeting to discuss how Israeli government bureaucrats were hampering their grassroots efforts — and, they believed, contributing to shortages of body armor, night-vision goggles and other gear across conflict zones. 

 One participant described undertaking a “smuggling operation” to sneak donated rifle scopes past customs agents and into Israel. 

“We don’t use that word,” said another participant. “We call it technical logistical support.”

In reality, many of the volunteers regularly refer to their activity as smuggling. They blame red tape at Israeli ports as they sometimes bring gear into the country without declaring it to customs or fill out forms in which they falsely state the gear is meant for civilian purposes when in fact it’s destined for soldiers, according to interviews. 

Jonathan Greenwald, the managing director of a private equity firm in Miami, told JTA how he and his network of donors have smuggled hundreds of small drones into Israel. 

“Most of what we send over is by a passenger, in their luggage,” Greenwald said. “We can’t send them by cargo because they would have to clear traditional customs and they would likely get confiscated. We don’t declare — that’s what makes it smuggling.”

Greenwald and others making donations, whether through smuggling or not, say they ensure security and safety by vetting requests they receive, reviewing technical specifications directly with logistics officers and experts, and monitoring the chain of custody of donated gear as it travels from American airports to Israeli military bases. 

Now, the Israeli government is making it even more difficult to legally donate equipment to soldiers. Even before Yadai’s memo, almost nothing was being allowed in, according to several nonprofits, and reports abound of bags of donations being detained or confiscated. Even when items clear customs with permits from the Economy Ministry or other government offices, officials sometimes charge a 17% value added tax that is supposed to be waived for donations, according to Adi Vaxman, head of Operation Israel, and Marc Brodner with the Israel Chesed Center, both nonprofits.

It’s not unusual for nonprofits to take on an increased role to support the military and its soldiers during wartime, according to Amir Pasic, a professor of philanthropic studies at Indiana University. But Pasic said the fact that charities are supplying the type of equipment necessary for actual combat raises questions for him.

“Is it a sign of strong support from the diaspora/the community or a sign of weakness in the state’s ability to field an army?” he asked. 

For Lila Corwin Berman, a Temple University historian who has written extensively about Jewish philanthropy, the answer is unambiguous. 

 “It seems that civil society is trying to fill a gap that has been created by a state in disarray and under profound stress,” she said. “That these donations are circumventing or breaking state laws is a further indication that the state is incredibly weak, I think, because the presumption of those violating them is that they know better what is ultimately good for the state.”

From the military command’s perspective,  the state is functioning as it should and the strong support from the Jewish Diaspora, while appreciated, is being misdirected toward unnecessary gear donations.

All countries put up bureaucratic obstacles at their borders, including regulations on imported goods that are meant to protect the local economy from foreign or unfair competition, or dangerous goods. Additionally, many countries, including Israel, impose taxes on imports with at least some exceptions for charity. 

But as an organizer of donations for soldiers, Greenwald said he wished the Israeli government could understand that the crisis of the war requires more latitude at the borders. He accepts the need to protect the Israeli economy from a black market in commercial goods, but wishes some of the red tape would be lifted in consideration of the war effort, he said. 

He likened his efforts to those documented in the book “The Pledge,” now being made into a movie, which chronicles American Jews’ clandestine efforts to bring arms into British Mandate Palestine in anticipation of armed conflict in what became Israel’s War of Independence.

“I view it as 1948,” Greenwald said, referring to the year of that war. ”We are just trying to get stuff to the guys that need it.” 

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