Yisrael Galili

Yisrael Galili (; born Yisrael Balashnikov; ; 1923

Early life Galili was born Yisrael Balashnikov in Mishmar HaYarden, a moshava in the Upper Galilee in Mandatory Palestine, to Russian Jewish parents, though it is sometimes misreported that "Mishmar Hayarden" was either his birth name or located in the Soviet Union and that he immigrated from there as a child. His birth surname is often compared to Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47, though they are not related. He kept the last name Balashnikov for most of his adult life, with his assault rifle design initially also being referred to as the Balashnikov, until the Israel Defense Forces adopted the firearm into its arsenal in 1972. He subsequently changed his name to Galili, after the Galilee region where he grew up in, terming the rifle the Galil.

Career Early in his life, Galili joined the Haganah. At 14, he was assigned to guard duties for a Jewish battalion of the British Army, where he stole his first rifle, albeit without ammunition, which he used to defend his family during the 1936–1939 Arab revolt. He entered the Max Fein Vocational School in Jaffa at age 16 and learnt to assemble weapons. During World War II he enlisted in the British Army and served in the Jewish Brigade, stealing firearms from the military during this time to acquire weapons for the Haganah. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, several of Galili's family members were taken prisoner by the Syrian Army. Galili, together with Yakov Lior, invented what later became the Galil assault rifle, named after its inventor. Tests were conducted from the end of the 1960s to the early 1970s, where Galili's rifle was compared to the AK-47, Stoner 63, M16, HK33, AR-18, Steyr AUG, AR70, and the experimental GAL 5.56mm. Galili's rifle emerged as the winner and as a result the Galil was adopted by the military.

Personal life Galili's son Zeev, who was trained to be a gunsmith by his father at 17, recalled that his father was emotionally distant. Zeev was critical of his willingness to provide arms to corrupt nations, which Galili justified as "a way to strengthen the state". Despite this, Galili held the view that "the quality of [Israeli] politicians deteriorated" after the founder David Ben-Gurion, but became a close friend to former Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan through their business relationship. Galili was also a fan of American actor Chuck Norris, who used the Galil rifle in several of his films, and eventually met with him in the 1980s. The family received personal condolences by Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

Zeev Galili joined the Israeli Ground Forces, initially as a driver before his father arranged for his transfer to weapons development, where he served for 40 years. In 1998, Zeev Galili was arrested after his workplace, a weapons store, was linked to the sales of firearms and ammunition to undercover Hezbollah agent , but released after two days of questioning at an underground Shin Bet facility.

On 25 July 2011, Kfar Sava police confiscated the gun collection from Zeev Galili, who had been required to turn in all his weapons due to a criminal complaint following a domestic dispute at his home and voluntarily shown officers additional firearms he kept at his parents' house. Police were unaware of his father's identity and mistakenly believed Zeev Galili to be an arms trafficker. Zeev Galili was remanded for five days and questioned for nine hours about two of the guns, an engraved Nazi-era Mauser and a still-functional prototype Jericho, as well as a razor whetstone, which police claimed was a bomb detonator. The initial domestic complaint was dismissed as unfounded, but the weapons were kept for ballistic testing. Zeev Galili later complained that the officers had deprived him of food, causing him severe pain as a diabetic, with his attorney Michael Ofir adding that the police made sensationalist comments immediately after the seizure of the guns. Zeev Galili put a great emphasis on having the collection returned without damage, saying "It is the only memento I have of him. Some parents leave poems and love letters behind. My father left me a collection of weapons.".