The State Comptroller's report on the performance of the police in the Wall Guard incidents in the cities involved will not surprise anyone who was here a year or two ago: it was already clear in real time that this was a deep-rooted fault, and if it is not corrected immediately, its future damages will be many times greater.
Office of the State Comptroller and Ombudsman
The auditor detailed the faults at length, detailing each one of them.
They are found in almost every field;
From the functioning of the police stations in the field (their size, their suitability for their duties, the structure of their personnel and even the lack of enough police officers who speak Arabic), through intelligence matters (or more precisely: a lack of intelligence, intelligence coordinators and professional intelligence assessors), logistics, collection and retention of data (even agreement on numbers the detainees and the interrogated are not), reserves and a poor and incomplete analysis of the situation in real time, until the required lessons are learned.
Not all lessons and responsibilities rest with the police.
The Shin Bet is also found in the report as one whose real-time assessments were lacking, and above all - as one whose basic poor coordination and undefined division of powers between it and the police impaired the provision of an adequate response to incidents.
Both organizations reject these things, and claim that the work between them is good and professional;
But according to the test of the result, it seems to them that it is better that the critic is right, otherwise one is asked to wonder about the gap between the quality of their work and the results in the field.
The riots in Lod, about a year ago, photo: Yossi Zeliger
Although the report is detailed and to the point, it should be looked at from a bird's eye view. Each of the deficiencies obviously requires a response and correction, but the bottom line - or the first - is the really important one: the Israel Police is small about its tasks, and minimal about the challenges that await it in an emergency. It has deep-rooted problems of budget, personnel, training and quality of command, which if not corrected will cause enormous damage.
All these are not parked in the police station.
The responsibility for them rests with the government, which for many years deliberately dried up the police, avoided appointing a commissioner, and in general did everything to reduce it, literally. In crime and violence in Arab society, and in the wholesale retirement of police officers who do not want to belong or be identified with a battered body that you picture on the boards.
Policemen in Jerusalem, photo: Oren Ben Hakon
In other words, the Israel Police is a victim of deliberate abuse, the immediate result of which is an impairment of the service it provides to the citizen.
The auditor does focus the report on the events in the cities involved, but he could equally well have written the same report on the capabilities and performance of the police in routine in almost any city or district.
Worse, if the reports were done cumulatively, year after year, the auditor would find that instead of the trend of improving the police going backwards - a direct result of the chronic absence of police stations and police officers, in the budget, and in government programs to deal with root problems.
The mixed cities are an excellent example of this.
The auditor deals with the functioning of the security forces, but the problem is much deeper, and it includes elements of employment, education, welfare and more.
In order for the police to be able to challenge, they need active assistance from a number of government ministries, which should be an integral part of the state's response to the problem.
In the meantime this is not happening, and the future consequences will be very severe.
The events of the Guardian of the Walls were a wake-up call, which so far hasn't really woken anyone up.
Despite the reports and summaries, things on the ground are being conducted lazily. If the State of Israel does not come to its senses and act to strengthen the police on an ongoing basis (and to establish systems that will overcome it in an emergency, such as the immediate establishment of a National Guard), the current auditor's report will look like a visit to a drop of milk compared to the report's conclusions To be written after the next campaign.
were we wrong
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