A nightmarish year passed for the Israel Police and Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai, appointed to the post in early 2021. It began in late April in a disaster in Meron, which claimed the lives of 45 people, and continued with helplessness in riots in cities involved during Operation Walls, lack of governance in the Negev, crime Goa, the innocent civilians who fall victim to the wars of the criminal organizations, and of course, the rampant violence in the Arab sector, which has claimed 122 lives since the beginning of the year.
"This is the most difficult year the police have known," states (retired) Superintendent Assaf Hefetz, who served as commissioner from 1994 to 1997.
"The big problem of the police was manifested in the time of the wall guard, a situation that the police did not experience like. The scale of their difficult events, their parallelism, left the organization unprepared. We saw phenomena I do not remember, such as helplessness and inability to respond in time "In the Arab sector. I also link this to the fact that there was no commissioner for two years, and when there is no commissioner - there is no multi-year plan and no proper preparation. These are the results."
Saturn was appointed commissioner more than two years after Roni Alshikh left the office in harsh tones. Until January 2020 there was no permanent commissioner, and the person who served as deputy was Superintendent Moti Cohen.
"Once there is no permanent commissioner, one who has responsibilities to the minister and the police, the system erodes," Hefetz (77) is convinced.
The worst damage was that the best people retired. Take Zohar Dvir (deputy commissioner), Alon Asor (deputy commissioner), Yoram Halevi (commander of the Jerusalem district). They should not have retired so early. They should have To be candidates for commissioner.
Instead, we have reached a point where we have rolled out the system. "
"Roni Alshikh, who may have had good intentions in his appointment, failed to bring about change, and was also the first to put politics into office," said (retired) Uri Bar-Lev, 62, who served as Southern District commander and retired from the police in 2011.
"The decision to appoint him was part of every minister's desire to surprise.
"Take a military correspondent for the last year to the post of chief of staff and ask, 'Who will be next?
Give three candidates' - 99 percent will hit the mark.
At the police station, if you go back and rummage through the archives, you will see that every time candidates were published, the reporters were not harmed.
The Minister wants to surprise.
Says, 'I will marry someone who will be more cuddly than the others and be loyal,' and of course he is disappointed afterwards.
"Karadi was a surprise, and Dudi Levy, and Yochanan Danino, and will go back to the time of Yaakov Turner."
Unlike Alshikh, who came to the GSS-led commissioners, Kobi Shabtai was the Border Police commander, but also gained positions in the Blue Police. "Luth.
"You have to bring in people with the right background," says (retired) Chief of Staff Yaakov Borovsky, 70, a former Northern District commander.
"I have no criticism of Kobe on a personal level, he was my commander, I appreciate and love him. I think when he was appointed, he should have decided that what he knew from the border moved aside, and he was a policeman.
Saturn is trying to make a difference, but to be the head of an organization you have to study the organization.
We need a learning curve. "
Commissioner Kobi Shabtai with the Minister of Internal Security, Amar Bar-Lev. David Tzur: "The question at the end is what remains in memory", Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Superintendent (retired) David Tzur (62) disagrees with this view.
"There will always be those who say at the end, 'He is not a professional, he has not rubbed enough soles.' I do not hold this thesis.
Tzur served as commander of the Border Guard during the period when Saturn was a Border Police officer in the north.
"There's a big advantage to someone who grew up in a culture of command and combat," he says, "and I do not underestimate for a moment that it takes greater effort from guys like us, who need to learn the profession. Because a cop is a profession. But if you are a good manager and commander, and you know how to put "The right people by your side, the gap is narrowing. It is true that it would have been good if Saturn had also served as district commander, but he was a commander of a significant area like the Sharon. He knows the Arab sector, and for the events that lie ahead he is the right man."
Even after what happened this year?
"He entered under complex and difficult objective conditions. Acting Commissioner Moti Cohen did a good job, but was limited. The chaotic situation that existed in the police also appears in the IPS.
One can see how much these two organizations are suffering today.
Beyond that, the state budget has not passed in those years.
You can not equip or plan plans.
"That's why I do not like to personalize events because it's an old-fashioned debate - did World War II do Churchill, or did Churchill do it? What was the commander's degree of influence? The late Yehuda Wilk was an excellent commissioner In my opinion, but what, at the end of the day they will remember that in the events of October 2000 the police lost control. Take Dan Halutz, who is considered a meteor, and without the Second Lebanon War he could have been an excellent chief of staff, but what remains in memory? "
"Did not bring about change."
Alsich, Photo: Yehuda Peretz
• • •
One of the pictures that will remain in memory of the first year of Shabtai's tenure was taken on the evening of April 30, at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount Meron.
The commissioner was seen standing next to the Minister of Internal Security, Amir Ohana, as the crowd began to gather. A few hours later, the largest civilian disaster in the country's history took place.
It can be assumed that the police will not come out clean from the state commission of inquiry into the disaster investigation.
Although the place management scandal began long before Saturn took office, it is impossible to ignore the fact that it happened on his shift, with quite a few politicians exerting pressure in the days leading up to the event.
As Uri Bar-Lev says: "Napoleon was once told, 'The general you value is an idiot, but lucky.' Napoleon replied: 'Who is looking for a talented general? I am looking for a lucky person.'"
"In 1983, they set up four large parking lots at the entrance to Meron, so that citizens would not arrive by private car but would get on a bus, thus regulating," says Borowski, who served as commander of the northern district.
"Why did they decide to change the procedure? Why were there so many lights at the same time? We changed the location of the first light on the roof of the tomb at the time, because we were afraid of a collapse.
"Police can not say 'I am not responsible for the outcome.' "Sometimes I answered that I ask for the written instruction? The responsibility is not divided when it comes to people's lives. A politician has the ability to press, you have to have a backbone to say 'no', or 'give me the written instruction and I will fulfill it'" ".
Assaf Hefetz, Photo: Efrat Eshel
Superintendent (Retired) Alik Ron (74), who was also the Northern District Commander, agrees.
"When I was in office, I did not hear any pressure. I made sure to place police and checkpoints to dilute the number of immigrants, and many times it did not please politicians, who demanded that police chiefs come to terms with me. It did not make me withdraw from my positions, , But need to put a limit.
"Sorry if this is perceived as arrogance, but more than once I have found myself saying to the Minister of Police: 'I must make sure that my people fight for law and order, and when you have to give them back, I will. If things are not to your liking, oust me.'
Former commissioner Hefetz is convinced that "commissioners feel in some place a debt to the minister who appointed them, which could lead to a default."
"I remember in my time there was an attempt to intervene in the appointment of Sando Mazur as head of the investigation department. I insisted, and he was appointed. But over the years the system has been harmed, and not the best people appointed, but the mediocre.
Alik Ron, Photo: Efrat Eshel
• • •
In 2014, David Tzur, when he served as a Knesset member in Tzipi Livni's "Movement" party, was appointed chairman of the Meron Events Subcommittee.
The police were drawn to this incident like many other things, at the end of which people come to it with complaints.
"Take the early 2000s - the Lag B'Omer event in Meron was almost negligible, did not even reach the approval of the national headquarters.
An event of several thousand, unparalleled in any district.
Slowly, a problem began with the traffic arrangements, when shouts came as to why the police were blocking and the rabbis were unable to get to the scene.
"From a few thousand, it has become an event of hundreds of thousands, in a place that cannot contain that amount."
Therefore the police are responsible for the order.
"The police have the greatest residual responsibility in the world. Everything that is not the GSS, an institution, an army, falls on them.
The person who makes a situation assessment of the Meron events is ostensibly the police, but it does not conduct them.
Under section 3 of the Police Ordinance it is indeed responsible for public order and property, so the responsibility can always be dropped on it, and I am not saying that it can evade responsibility because it has conducted an operation order.
"But whoever's in charge is not her, just like on a football field you know who to turn to. You determine how many cops and security guards should be in Bloomfield, and if not, you tell the organizers 'canceled.' .
David Tzur, Photo: Efrat Eshel
Superintendent (retired) Bruno Stein (60), who previously served as Central District Commander and retired in 2014, disagrees with Tzur.
"It is impossible to say when everything is going well, 'we were organized,' and after a disaster to claim that it is not the police who legislate the laws. "Simple, and we will feel its results and conclusions when the results of the commission of inquiry arrive. And let us not forget that in five months there will be another revelry."
• • •
Saturn and the police had no time to lick the wounds of the disaster in Meron.
On May 10, less than two weeks later, Operation Wall Guard began, and no intelligence source warned that the IDF operation, which was concentrated in the Gaza Strip, would spill over into the streets of mixed cities in Israel.
Mirrors of lack of governance.
Riots in Acre during Operation Wall Guard,
There have never been such mirrors of lack of governance.
On May 11, Channel One cameras caught a large number of Jews lynching an Arab driver who happened to be on the promenade in Bat Yam, when the police were not seen in the area.
The next day, in Acre, Arab rioters fatally wounded Elad Barzilai.
In September, Commissioner Saturn said in a discussion in the Knesset's Internal Security Committee: "We were surprised.
Anyone who says no is probably lying. "
Borowski is outraged.
"What do you mean 'we were surprised' ?! It's like the chief of staff saying 'I was not prepared for the possibility of war'.
Take the 30,000 cops you have, train them, make sure there's an order.
How do you not prepare?
"It's a body that has lost its professionalism, and when you're not professional enough, then both the internal customer, police officers and officers, and also the external customer, the citizens - treat you less well. The thought of putting an army and a border into the streets is terrible.
A distorted worldview.
"A policeman gives a service to a citizen, and when you bring the Border Police and the GSS, you say to the Arab citizen: 'I stopped giving you a service.'
Yaakov Borovsky, Photo: Efrat Eshel
Hefetz: "Once the events started across the country, it had to be understood that there was going to be a big thing. It was always a day or two late, and the delay in responding allowed for chaos and helplessness for the first two days, and only then did we see more action.
"So it's clear that citizens feel less secure and less confident in the police, and these are things that the organization must fix. I do not understand how such purchases were created, that people rioted for long minutes without any response, even initial. It is a classic expression of lack of governance."
Contact: "The police are good at big events like rallies, Eurovision, the pope's visit. The problem is on a daily basis, in street crime, because it is thin and small, and the strong national forces that can come, like the Border Police and YSM, have to move between districts.
The police force does not really correspond with 2021. The organization can be flogged from here to a new post, but it needs a boost of at least 3,000 policemen to address not only extreme scenarios, but events of restoring governance in the Arab sector. I saw an analysis in an economic newspaper, which examined the real increase in the organization's budget, and they did an analysis of the workforce there. With all due respect, a large portion of the budget has been eroded in salaries and pensions, and the reinforcement of police over the years has been in national units like the Blade and National Headquarters. I do not underestimate, but the public is not really interested in white-collar investigations. What bothers me more on a daily basis is the lack of governance and street crime, and there was little, if any, reinforcement. "
Bar-Lev: "I am not a defense attorney for the police, there are many things in which they must improve, but during the events many hundreds of rioters were arrested, and check what the penalties were. There is no finishing leg here. The other part is the legal / public backing. Me how I would react - I would react by shooting, as a self-defense.If I go to Tel Aviv today and someone throws a Molotov cocktail at me, I will shoot him, and not like the lawyers' nonsense 'aim at the feet'.
"If anyone who is about to throw a Molotov cocktail knows that he may snatch a bullet in the head, the story will look different. But they are aware of our weakness. In the past, the Border Police was the terror of the Palestinians. When I was a regular soldier, .
Today the Arabs of Israel allow themselves to do in daylight what they once did in the dark.
"I am very afraid that the next big security incident will lead to an intifada. We are all usually diplomats and say, 'These are not all Arabs and not all Bedouins.' True, but very quickly you understand who owns the house. There is sovereignty in the country, and you may pay.Once they understand that the sovereign is Ahmed, a criminal, but in their eyes a freedom fighter - he will get their support.The distance between criminality in Arab society and a terrorist blurs quickly.
"In the following events we see chaos: shots from moving cars, Molotov cocktails, riots that end in lynching. What happened now is not even the opening dose. I live in the country, I love it, but we do not show that we govern it. Israeli Arabs know that the tiger can blow reservoirs Ammunition in Syria and stealing an archive in Iran, they are able to spin on the little finger.
"Part of the police's logo in the world is 'to serve and protect.' "There will be a lot of blood on the streets, and then we will have to change the rules. Because in the current situation, we see every day where it is going."
Uri Bar-Lev, Photo: Oren Cohen
• • •
Bar-Lev was the commander of the southern district, perhaps the most problematic district in the country today, due to the loss of governance in the Negev.
It has been 17 years since he was appointed to the post, but he knows that what he did then to deal with the situation will not work today.
"On my first day as district commander, the then minister, the late Gideon Ezra, took me to meet with large business owners in the Sara Valley industrial area near Beer Sheva.
I understood from those people that it should be made clear to the criminal organizations that there is a new sheriff in town.
We took six policemen, put 'guard' shirts on them, entered the industrial area and flew those who were guarding there on behalf of the criminal organizations.
We told them, 'There's a new company that won the tender,' and we listened in to understand how they were organized.
"We learned that they were going to teach a lesson to the new security company. 180 Bedouins arrived, only they did not know that civilian police and Border Police officers were waiting in civilian trucks.
As soon as the sighting recognized them arriving, 200-150 policemen armed with batons set out, and in less than an hour 79 broken arms, legs and heads arrived in Soroka.
"With something like this today, I guess I would have had to rent an apartment for a long time to pass the DIP investigation in it, and Tiktok photos would come out of the hospital.
At that time the tools were different, and the police created a deterrent not according to protocol.
Would it have gone through legal advice today?
Definitely not. "
"As the former head of the Investigations Division and commander of two districts, I tell you that there is no crime phenomenon that cannot be dealt with," says (retired) Yossi Sedbon (69).
"We need to allocate manpower and resources, and then we will witness a significant decrease in the field. In my time in the police, one of the most prominent areas was car theft. There were 40,000 a year. Today there are about 15,000. We invested resources and resources, and the answer was given.
"The technologies exist, it costs a lot of money and a lot of manpower, but unfortunately, no one invests in the police what is needed. It should also be remembered that the Israeli police give an answer to the symptoms, not the disease."
What do you mean?
"I remember we treated women traffickers. At first the punishment was low, then the government decided to deal, also because of American pressure. The punishment was increased, and instead of a year in prison they moved to double digits - and the phenomenon dropped significantly.
"The severity of the punishment matters. So suppose they now increase the Israel Police by 15,000 policemen - they will create many more cases, and someone will have to handle the lawsuit and have to judge. We need detention cells in the prison service. These are interlocking tools. It is very easy to say 'Israel Police'. "She is also guilty in part of the case, I do not remove the responsibility from her, but not in all."
A demonstration in Be'er Sheva against violence in the Negev, about a month and a half ago.
Sedbon: "There is no crime phenomenon that can not be dealt with", Photo: Dudu Greenspan
Zur: "To overthrow the failure in the Arab sector on the police is easy. If you overcome the police tomorrow, they will know how to deal with crime. Will it bring back governance? No, because we gave up arranging unrecognized localities, education. There are four hours of Hebrew lessons a week at school. I was told: four, maximum. High schools in Israel take out graduates who do not speak Hebrew.
"And there is another incident, which we do not like to talk about. We forget the unification of the families of Israeli Arabs with Palestinians until 2003. You check and see that today the proportion of Palestinians in Bedouin families is huge, about 40 percent, including those involved in serious crime. - 80, who enlisted in the IDF.
"A police force is not an army, it cannot force its rule over a social system, neither Jewish nor Arab," says former commissioner Hefetz. "Arab society in particular has a complete anomaly.
Lack of norms, and this allowed the development of crime, which makes it difficult for the governmental system to deal with it.
In such serious cases we need an army, and since we are a democratic society and are supposed to deal with other tools, then try to involve the GSS - which is because I do not rule out, at least temporarily.
"When there is no possibility of rapid cultural, educational and employment change, you have to use other techniques to curb the phenomenon. Large police forces must be deployed in the Arab sector, but what matters is cooperation with the public. Of all babies born today in the Arab sector, "When the child's future is determined, the police have no involvement. Therefore, if systems like education and welfare are not addressed, it will be more difficult for the police."
• • •
The police led by Kobi Shabtai is different from the one served by the senior officials interviewed for the article.
Bar-Lev at the time brought tactics he knew from the Cherry unit he commanded.
Hefetz, Ron and Tzur are members of the YMCA. Today the police are much more limited and controlled.
Chief of Staff Alik Ron, who commanded the northern district during the events of October 2000, was at the center of a storm at the time, after 12 Westerners from Israel were killed in the events.
A light committee set up at the time recommended that he no longer hold positions in the field of homeland security.
Ron wrote a song in support of the Warriors:
"When will the questioner demand in the cloak of hypocrisy 'Where has morality gone?' In his place in the line will stand, mother fear kneeling to give birth / But her anger, where he was born is not soft, he is the father of burning hatred / It is terrible hatred, blindness. "I do not call for the blood to be released, not for a light finger on the trigger / I just remember in horror, like many others, who ever took part in the battle."
"Border fighters did the right thing," Ron tells us, "a gate in your mind that the same terrorist, in his last breath, would have detonated an explosive belt."
"Today a policeman who uses force endangers his livelihood," says Borowski, "it's enough for someone to photograph him raising a hand at the wrong angle, for DIP to nine him, and then, by another mistake, the court will rule - and after 17 years in the organization he is out.
Where is the Inspector General who will say: 'You are not handling the incident until my professional team determines if there is a suspicion of a criminal offense, and only then will we refer the case to you?'
"The fact that the commissioner said nicely 'I'm backing up the cops' - what does it help when the police investigation department has opened a criminal case?
The fact that it was closed quickly is only because it came to the public's attention.
"We turned the police into a punching bag. DIP says, 'You lost your judgment, you are nothing.'
Do you know how many criminal cases are opened each year against police officers? "
According to DIP data, 4,082 cases were opened in 2020, an increase of 24 percent compared to 2019.
Uri Bar-Lev: "When I was the commander of the southern district, I received a report of an explosion in a mall in Dimona, an incident with wounded and dead. Inspector Kobi Moore arrived, who heard the explosion, and in the back of the mall He shouted at everyone to get away, stood five meters away from the terrorist and fired five bullets in the head.It turned out that the same one was indeed carrying an explosive belt.
"I immediately informed the national headquarters that I was raising the inspector's rank and giving him a SLA.
To DIP, who was sitting on my head, I said, 'Tomorrow he will come to you.'
"At the last event I would have done the same. Commendation, promotion and conveying an internal message. After that they will be questioned. First of all backup. ZLS, not because they attacked eight armed terrorists, but to make it clear that there was a landlord.
"If you check with a surgeon's knife what powers a policeman has, you will find that he has no more than you.
If you are questioned as a citizen, there is a chance that you will receive applause. "
• • •
At the end of 2021 the image of the police is at a low ebb.
This process has been going on for years.
"There is damage to the public image of the police," says Yossi Sedbon.
"The heads of government have previously claimed that the police are sewing cases, and this certainly did not add up. Today we see the retirement of officers with extensive knowledge and experience, and it has undoubtedly hampered the organization's ability to function.
Yossi Sedbon, Photo: Daniela Contini
"Look at the percentage of resignations each year, the numbers are insane," Borowski says.
"People you have trained, and after understanding and learning, go to the civilian market. You turn the organization into a bus stop without meaning to.
"Whoever does not think about how to leave cops and make them professional, can not address the poor image of the police. Police is a more difficult profession to learn than a lawyer, which is my profession today. It is harder than psychology and harder than a combat role in the army. Why? Because it contains the All these elements together. "
Cops is not the most infamous profession?
"True. They always said that one reads and one writes, because that is what the public gets in the end. But if once he got a person with power, today he gets a person without power."
Zur: "I think there is some idealization of the past. Today's policemen are more intelligent than those of 40-30 years ago. They come with more appropriate tools, more advanced technology, better intelligence.
"יש אולי אובדן מקצועיות, כי אם אתה לא מרגיש שהציבור מעריך את מה שאתה עושה, בגלל התדמית הירודה, אתה גם לא ממש רוצה להישאר. תוסיף את העובדה שבניגוד להורינו, שעבדו באותו מקום מהיום הראשון ועד האחרון, היום צעירים נוטים לדלג בין משרות. קשה לשמר את המקצועיות".
שטיין: "המשטרה קטנה, וכבר לא מתאימה לגודל האוכלוסייה ולצרכיה במדינה. שמעתי שתהיה תוספת של 1,100 שוטרים - זה כמו כוסות רוח למת. צריך 6,000-5,000 שוטרים, וחייבים לשפר להם את התנאים. שוטרים עובדים בשביל 7,000 שקל בחודש, כשכל מזכירה באזור תל אביב לא תדרוך במשרד בשביל פחות מ־8,000. ככה לא מגייסים את מיטב בנינו ובנותינו.
"אני לא מזלזל חלילה בשוטרות, יש בהן גיבורות ומצטיינות, אבל כשיש קטטה בכפר ערבי, ובאים 20 שוטרים, ומתוכם שמונה נשים, אתה מבין שזה אירוע לא פשוט. כמו שבגולני ובצנחנים לא מכניסים נשים, גם כשמגיעים להפגנה גדולה צריך מאסה קריטית, נוכחות".
ברונו שטיין, צילום: אפרת אשל
על פי נתוני משטרת ישראל, משרתים היום במשטרה 22 אלף גברים וכ־10,000 נשים.
צור: "אם תוותר על מטוס F-16 אחד, פתרת את כלל בעיות הפרישה של משטרת ישראל לעשר השנים הבאות. תחשוב מה הערך המוסף שיש למטוס, מול הביטחון שייתנו עוד 400-300 ניידות, על צוותיהן. כאלה שתפרוס במחוז הצפוני, במרכז ובדרום, ויחוללו שינוי דרמטי. האם מבחינת סדרי העדיפויות של האזרח, לא נכון לבחון את זה?
"בדיונים שהיו לי מול האוצר אמרו לי: 'באותה מידה, תבנה בכסף הזה עוד מחלקות סי.טי בבתי החולים'. נכון, אולי אחרי 73 שנה הגיע הזמן להגיד: בואו נעשה פריש־מיש בסדרי העדיפויות".
"המשטרה לא עומדת במשימות מול האזרחים, וכשאתה לא יודע לתת מענה לביטחון ולרכוש של כל אזרח, אז יש מקומות שמסוכן להסתובב בהם", אומר בורובסקי. "זה מצחיק, אבל לא מזמן נסעתי לים המלח, ואנשים שהיו איתי ברכב שאלו אם הצירים שאני נוסע בהם (ליד כפרים בדואיים; א"ל) לא מסוכנים לנסיעה.
"In my days, when a criminal saw a policeman, he would cross to the other side of the sidewalk. Today, when a policeman sees a criminal, he is the one crossing a side. He does not want the friction. Are we crazy?"
Assaf Hefetz believes that Commissioner Kobi Shabtai can still succeed in the job. "He entered a very difficult period.
I also came from the IDF, and was said to be an outsider and a war man. That was not true. Kobe has the combat and police experience required to be a commissioner during this period.
I would say that today he is much more prepared and acting in a coherent and correct manner.
It all depends on him. "
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il
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