Opinion: Since Oct. 7, Israelis have begun arming themselves the American way
Among the core Israeli national narratives that have been fractured by the Hamas terror attacks and months of war and violence is the notion that Israel’s ethos on firearms differs from that of the United States. Both countries can be characterized as gun-centric democracies, but according to the Israeli narrative, the U.S. is a land of too many guns and too few laws, while Israelis “trust their state, and don’t fear each other.” A common refrain emphasizes that in Israel, bearing arms isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. After Oct. 7, in a shockingly fast turnaround, that privilege became, if not a right, an imperative. In changing Israel’s relationship with firearms, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is also changing the nation in ways that could have profound and lasting implications. I have spent more than a decade collaborating with Israeli public health scholars and safety activists to better understand how a country with many guns could see only a fraction of U.S. civilian gun deaths. Partner shootings, homicides, gun suicides, accidental shootings and mass shootings have been …
