Sucker who fights: the system does not understand the difference between war on crime and policing during combat

Masses of Arabs took part in the violent events at "Guardian of the Walls".

The vast majority of them went home without paying a price.

At the same time, dozens of officers and policemen found themselves being interrogated in the police station like the last of the criminals, following every action they took against the rioters. In the next round of terror, they will have to think carefully before attacking again

Kalman Libeskind

10/21/2022

Friday, October 21, 2022, 12:00 Updated: Saturday, October 22, 2022, 7:37 p.m.

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The accused in the lynching in Acre (Photo: Yoav Itiel)

For a long time, the State of Israel has been dealing with a war of varying intensity on its internal front, against the Israeli Arabs.

Sometimes this front erupts in Jerusalem, sometimes in the mixed cities, sometimes on the roads of the Galilee, and sometimes in the Negev.

On the front line of this war are the Israeli police officers, whose country, as we will see here, sends them to the front without tools, and throws them to their fate, on the side of the road, just after something gets complicated.

A few days after the former Chief of Staff, Gadi Eisenkot, presented his plan to double the number of police officers, to increase the budget, and to reorganize the police units, it is necessary to say the following clearly: none of this has any value when the law enforcement system pursues the police officers who are fighting the enemy, and harasses them. and harasses them, and insists on coming to account with them in the most difficult way for every wrong move they made on the battlefield in front of rioters, in front of stone throwers and in front of a crowd of gods.

Moments after the end of the "Guardian of the Walls" operation, while the State Comptroller states that many of the Arabs who participated in the riots and violations of the order got away without indictment, dozens of police officers found themselves in the interrogation rooms, being investigated as suspects following their activities surrounding those events.

Each of them, in the opinion of the police investigation department, used too much force during the operation to arrest suspects of terrorism and violence.

In many cases, the stone mason was released to his home, with the policeman sent to arrest him remaining the only one required to face a serious indictment.

The stories we will tell here, examples only, will teach how instead of encouraging its policemen and fighters in their fight against terrorism, the state does everything to take away their desire, damage their motivation and make it clear to them that the more they increase their heads, the more likely they are to find themselves under investigation, under suspension or at risk of being fired.

Every such police officer who is investigated as a criminal suspect has friends and partners in the team or unit.

They see with their own eyes the injustice caused to him.

In the next round, when we need them ready to risk facing a mob that is lynching a Jewish driver, it is not certain that all of them will have a great desire to attack first.

Policemen in Lod during the riots during the Wall Guard period, May 13, 2021 (Photo: Reuven Castro)

The first lines of the indictment filed by the police against Sergeant Major Ben Yishai, the head of the detective team at the Rahat Police, describe very well the situation in those days, of the "Guardian of the Walls", in the city in particular, and in the country in general.

"Wide disturbances... violence... damage to bodies and property, riots, burning of vehicles including police cars, throwing Molotov cocktails, shooting fireworks, burning tires and garbage cans, blocking roads and throwing stones and objects... these days were days of fear, both To the citizens and to the security forces who worked day and night in an attempt to restore order and calm the riots."

The night after the beginning of the "Guardian of the Walls" events, Yishai and his staff were called into operational activity in the city, against the background of violent riots that broke out there.

During the trip, when a distress call was received from one of the policemen in the area who had been hit by a massive stone pelting, Yishai changed his team's mission and rushed towards him.

"I spotted a lot of people throwing stones at a police force that was there. We unloaded from the vehicle and two arrests were made."

Two of his men, Meir Sarfati and Sergey Kuzmenko, who also later found themselves being investigated as the last of the perpetrators, arrested one of the stone throwers.

"I saw that a Frenchman was shouting that the detainee was biting him on the hand and Sergei was unable to control himself," Ben Yishai later testified, "and then I punched him in the mouth as a softening blow, the purpose of which was to facilitate his arrest. After the blow I gave, the detainee released the bite from Frenchman. At this point I understand from Frenchman that the detainee also gave him a blow with his fist... we lifted him towards the detective vehicle to cut him off, because a lot of people are coming... and I hear my friend shouting again that the detainee is pepper-spraying them. I returned to them and saw that they were crying, and there was pepper spray in his hand and he Sprayer... and then he also sprayed me in the eyes... I wanted to give him a softening blow in the chest so that he would drop it, because he was holding it at chest level, but I hit his head. He dropped the spray and I caught him."

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Cars that were set on fire in Haifa during the riots during Operation Guard the Walls (Photo: Yoav Itiel)

"After we reached almost exhaustion, we manage to pick him up", testified French about his angle to the incident, "I grab him by the back of the hood... then he pushes his hand into his pocket, turns to me and sprays me with pepper under the helmet and does not leave the tank. 70 percent of the tank went only on my face. He finished with me and sprayed Sergey... I screamed like a madman. I put my hand forward and started to walk until I stopped and hit the wall, because the stones did not stop and my back broke it for me with stones... I scream And I'm really exhausted. I can't get a hold of him almost, and I'm fighting with everything I've got, and I'm screaming to the sky... I shouted 'grab him, handcuff him'... I didn't see anything, it only intensified the burning inside... I lost The sense of sight completely. They rescued me like they rescue a soldier from Lebanon. That's how I felt... I threw up in the car.... The second time I came to catch him in the head he already gave me a bite and bit me."

Sergey Kuzmenko: "I received a splash of tear gas in my eyes... I could hardly see because of the pain in my eyes, and I could only see what was close to me... I heard my Frenchman still shouting in pain. We were both blurry and in pain. We didn't know where to go. Ben (Yeshi - KL) helped us and I caught my French in the vest so that he would go in the right direction."

Ben Yishai described what happened after they managed to drag the suspect, Yahya Abu Ganem, the stone mason who ran riot, from the scene.

A crowd started approaching us throwing stones, I got a stone in my helmet on my head and also stones in my legs and I got bruises.

At this point I threw a stun grenade in the direction of the crowd and in the process asked for assistance from the liaison, because it was already too much and we had nowhere to run.

They surrounded us and we were surrounded.

I helped Sharafti and Sergey and realized that the detainee was hiding his hands and did not allow me to handcuff him.

I pulled his hand, he continued to resist and tried to bite my hands and then here one more time I gave him a softening blow in the direction of the ribs and head and then I tied him up and a car came to rescue us."

Riots in Lod during Operation Wall Guard (Photo: Reuven Castro)

The police investigator presented to Sergeant Yeshi the claim according to which he punched Abu Ghanem even after he was handcuffed.

Yishai claimed that we do not remember this, but did not rule out the possibility.

"He resisted and didn't let us accompany him properly and resisted arrest. There was also a crowd that threw stones at us," he tried to put her in the mood that evening.

"It wasn't just that I passed a man and punched him in the face... it was all with the aim of carrying out the arrest. Yahya resisted the entire arrest, he had a fist in his pocket, sprayed us with tear gas. So I used force against him until they came to rescue us approximately... it could have to be a knife to stab the policemen," he tried to explain in vain.

The police filed an indictment against Sergeant Ben Yishai, according to which he allowed one more punch to be stopped than was necessary, after Izuku.

The crime he was accused of is punishable by two years in prison.

Police also informed Ben Yishai that there was indeed a possibility that she would ask the court to impose a prison sentence on him. "We were all wearing a helmet and a helmet," Ben Yishai tried to explain to the investigator, when she explained to him that there was a chance he would be removed from the police.

"We were surrounded by a lot of people. The man came equipped with tools to attack the police in case they arrested him. He injured my detectives from the team. Every night there we ate stones non-stop, and you show me a 20-second video and tell me you want to put me away? OK."

This week I checked what was done to Yahya Abu Ghanem, who threw stones, rioted, bit policemen and sprayed Ben Yishai and his policemen with pepper spray.

Well, nothing.

While Ben Yishai has been dealing with a heavy criminal case for over a year, Abu Ghanem has not even been charged.

Policemen in Lod during Operation Guard the Walls (Photo: Reuven Castro)

And here is another story from a section not far away.

Chief Inspector Avi Vakanin serves as a detective intelligence officer in the Beer Sheva Police.

In May 2021, the day after the riots started all over the country, and the Negev was ablaze with throwing stones and Molotov cocktails and arson and roadblocks and lynchings of Jews and attacks on police stations, Corporal Vakinin received a request from the Shin Bet to locate Rafat Abu Ayish and arrest him for his involvement in a nationalist terrorist incident Against a Jew yesterday.

And Kanin arrived in the vicinity of Ben Gurion University, where at that time hundreds of Arabs were demonstrating against the IDF, against the bombings in Gaza and against what they called the "Israeli attacks on Al Aqsa". And Kanin the terror suspect. He approached him together with several other detectives, identified himself as a policeman and tried to arrest him. When he found himself, after this incident, under investigation at the police investigation department, a suspect in an assault, he tried to introduce the investigator to the atmosphere in which he operated, when he was surrounded by a war, with an Arab mob that the suspect is inside.

"The commotion started around us," he said.

"I felt from behind, while we were trying to stop him, that someone was punching me hard in the ribs. I really couldn't breathe."

Vakanin turned back and recognized Abdullah Abu Bakr behind him.

"I pushed him away from me with a punch because he was close to me," he testified, "after the punch he gave me two punches in the face, on both sides of the face, one hit me on the right side of the head and the other between the eye and the ear on the left side of the face. Immediately other policemen arrived who saw it ".

The policemen, he continued to describe, tried to arrest Abu Bakr without success.

The latter continued to rage and resist arrest.

"This guy, if I stood alone in front of him, he would have broken me with one hand... He didn't give his hands, he didn't cooperate, we tried to grab his hands," an officer from another unit who was at the scene and tried to take control of the Arab youth testified . He told about policemen who kicked Abu Bakr in an attempt to stop him."

Demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinians in Jaffa (Photo: Reuven Castro)

And Kanin, according to the documentation that later ran on the networks, joined the police, who had difficulty controlling the Arab youth who had beaten him a moment earlier, and gave him two blows using the walkie-talkie he was holding in his hand.

"In doing so, the defendant used force beyond what was required," stated the disciplinary indictment filed against him at the end of the day.

"When you sit under the air conditioner and watch the video, it's different from what I felt with the commotion and the events in the field," he tried to explain to no avail to the police investigator, who claimed that the

hit with the walkie-talkie was unnecessary.

with fists

Well, nothing.

He was not even charged.

And Kanin himself remains the only one from this incident who faces an indictment, and with the danger of losing his livelihood.

Here it is important to clarify something.

The police are not above the law.

Furthermore, they are the first to be required to act upon it.

And if a police officer deviated from what he was authorized to do, he should not enjoy immunity.

What else?

It seems that the system is not successful, and apparently has never tried, to understand the difference between routine policing operations against criminals - Jews or Arabs, residents of the periphery or residents of northern Tel Aviv - and operations that are carried out during a war.

Policemen in Jaffa during Operation Guard the Walls (Photo: Reuven Castro)

Yes, "Guardian of the Walls" was a war.

An Arab crowd then rose up against the State of Israel and its Jewish citizens, whoever they were, and declared that as far as they were concerned, they were the enemy.

And when you understand this, it is also easy to understand that the measuring tools that are used routinely, cannot be the measuring tools that are used in such an emergency situation.

And a policeman who fights a mob that throws stones at him and hurts him and his friends and crowns them and endangers them is not similar to a policeman who arrests a citizen who picked a wallet in the city market.

It is true, even a police officer who fights mass violent nationalist events has rules from which it is forbidden to deviate, but the thought that the raising of one hand, beyond what the police think was the right thing to do in the midst of a widespread violent riot, will bring a police officer who has put himself at risk to deal with a criminal case and with a procedure at the end of which he can find himself in prison, she is unbearable.

One day into "Guardian of the Walls", close to midnight, when the country was burning, Gil Zaken, a policeman at the Jerusalem Police District, was called to the city center, following a report of two teenagers holding grazinis and planning to harm Jews. When he arrived at the scene, citizens directed him to a nearby parking lot. When he entered the parking lot, along with other police forces, he noticed two Arab youths hiding behind a low concrete wall. The police informed the two that they were under arrest, they reacted violently, and from that moment a physical confrontation developed between the parties, in the end of which an old man and his friends managed to take control of them and handcuff them. At the end of the day It turned out that the detainees did not plan to carry out an attack at all, but in real time no one knew this, certainly not when they both reacted with force to the police's attempts to arrest them.

An attack on a Jewish driver during the Wall Guard operation on the French Hill in Jerusalem

On video: Documentation of an attempted lynching of a Jewish driver at the French Hill intersection during the "Guardian of the Walls" operation (Walla system!)

Be that as it may, an old man said in the action report he filled out after the incident, that he kicked one of the detainees after he noticed a quick movement of his hand and feared that he intended to pull out an assault weapon.

The police were not convinced, they determined that the Arab young man did not make any such movement, and that an old man "kicked him hard with his right leg but actually his left hand" while searching his body, without justifiable reason. , an offense punishable by two years in prison, and announced in the indictment that there was a possibility that it would also require actual imprisonment.

Zaken was removed from contact with the public for a long period of time.

The planned departure of the officer course was cancelled.

Last March he reached a plea agreement according to which he will confess, sign a commitment to refrain from committing a crime, and the charge against him will be dropped.

His lawyer, Adv. Itzik Cohen, reminded the judge who was asked to approve the settlement of the difficult atmosphere in the capital city in those days. "This is a very difficult night.

The first night of the 'Guardian of the Walls' operation.

The accused was called to an event where he talked about two terrorists with machetes who wanted to harm Jews... when the accused kicked the complainant, his body has not yet been searched."

"We see increasing importance in the defendant's taking responsibility, and that this is a single blow that did not cause any damage," said a representative of the Israel Defense Forces to the judge. And I ask, then, if these are the circumstances, if this was the situation, if innumerable attacks and attempts to harm Jews took place in the streets then, If "it's a matter of one blow that caused no damage", what the hell was going through your mind when you took this poor policeman to criminal proceedings as the last of the criminals? Do you, the police, live here?

Are you part of what is happening here?

How detached can you be?

The measuring tools in routine cannot be the measuring tools in an emergency.

Documentation from the guard of the walls (photo: IDF spokesperson)

"You are only referring to those against whom an indictment has been filed," explains attorney Itzik Cohen, who represents a number of police officers, following suspicions that arose against them after "Guardian of the Walls". "But there are many dozens of police officers who were only investigated as suspects.

Some of them did not sleep at night for months, until their case was closed.

Some are still awaiting a decision on their case.

All these officers and policemen, their lives are on hold.

Their promotion has stopped.

Their ranks are halted.

Their going to courses is stopped.

They go to sleep for a year, and sometimes more than that, with the knowledge that at the end of the procedure they can be fired, with the stamp of a court that they are criminals."

Corporal Moshe Ohion served during the "Guardian of the Walls" days in the David area of ​​the Jerusalem police. A week after the riots began, at noon one day, a report was received at the station about disturbances and gatherings in the area of ​​the stairs at the Nablus Gate. Ohion, who arrived at the scene with a force that served as his commander, asked the Arab crowd One of them, Suhaib Abu Saleh, who was standing there and filmed the event with his phone, did not respond to calls to disperse from the scene.

Ohion said in his testimony that Abu Saleh was part of the crowd that gathered around the police officers who arrested a minor suspect, that he helped thwart the arrest of that suspect, and that he called out "Today is a mess, you son of a bitch take care of yourselves", while advancing towards the police force that was behind him.

The Police Department filed an indictment against Ohion, claiming that he "slapped him in the face with his right hand" to Abu Saleh "without any justification." The offense: simple assault. The punishment in the law book: two years in prison. Ohion, for his part, claimed that it was not a slap but an attack on a suspect that the use of force against him was required for the purpose of carrying out the arrest due to his being dominant in the incident and due to the fact that he was an immediate threat to the police officers.

Demonstration in Foridis during Operation Guard the Walls (Photo: Yoav Itiel)

Five months ago, at the end of a legal proceeding at the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, Judge Joya Scafe Shapira acquitted Ohion.

The judge described the surrounding atmosphere, as emerged from the action reports of the police officers in the sector: a riot of dozens of young Arabs, some of whom are masked, some of whom are standing on the roofs and throwing stones at the policemen, and some of whom are holding assault weapons such as pepper spray and fists.

She also mentioned that during the arrest of some of the rioters the police had to use force, including the use of batons, pepper spray, a taser gun and a shocker, but chose not to accept the officer's version, according to which he slapped Abu Saleh with the intention of arresting him, and instead ruled that he did it to punish him.

Joya Scafe Shapira chose, despite these things, to acquit the officer because, in view of the circumstances, it was correct in her opinion to settle his case with a disciplinary procedure and not to go the criminal route.

"...the defendant has a defense against justice that requires the cancellation of the charge," she stated.

And what did the police investigation department do?

gave up?

do you think

She decided to go with the officer to the end to convict him of crimes following this slap he gave during an activity, when there were riots and stone throwing around him, and appealed the acquittal to the district court.

The hearing of the appeal has not yet taken place.

know what?

Let's assume that the police version is the correct one. That the slap was unnecessary. Isn't it excessive to take this officer on a criminal mission, as if he were a criminal, for an offense punishable by two years in prison, when you know the incident, and when you know that all of this happened when rioters around him, some of them masked, With stones and with fists and with other means?

"When in front of the fighter stood an Arab with a bullet in the barrel and the whole story is who pulls the trigger first, what do you expect?"

Minister Bar Lev (photo: official website, no)

Last March, we told here the story of four members of the Jerusalem Police, one of whom served until not long before as the commander of the Temple Mount sector.

The police then filed a letter of suspicion against the four and requested that they be prosecuted following their involvement in the incident that took place on the Temple Mount on the day that the "Wall Guard" riots began.

This day opened, as I recall, with violent and severe riots by Arabs on the mountain, with hundreds of them throwing large stones at the police forces from the stockpiles they had prepared the day before.

In addition, stones were also thrown at Jews who were praying below, in the Western Wall plaza.

21 policemen were injured on this day around the mosque square, when Hamas encourages the rioters, and the Israeli Arab Monitoring Committee encourages them while publishing condemnations of the Israeli invasion of Al Aqsa.

At one point, one of the rioters, Mohammed Titi, took a stone in his hand and threw it with force from a short distance at the head of one of the policemen.

The stone hit the visor of the helmet, which protected the policeman's face.

Several policemen who noticed the act began to chase Titi, who started running away, in an attempt to stop him.

Near the Waqf clinic on the mountain, three of them managed to get their hands on him, when they were joined by the commander of the mountain sector, Chief Inspector Yaron Biton.

According to the indictment requested by the police to file against the four, and based on a video that recorded the events, one of the policemen punched Titi four times, while a second policeman kicked his lower body, and all this before their friend was able to handcuff him. After the handcuffing, when Titi was led out of the scene , the third policeman hit him two more times. The Police Department chose to ignore the atmosphere, to ignore the fumes of the war, to ignore everything that was happening around, and to treat the policemen as if they caught someone in the street and beat him just like that. which is punishable by two years in prison, and the other three for aggravated assault, which is punishable by four years in prison. In addition, since at the end of the incident the police officers reported that the suspect was "arrested by force", but did not explicitly admit that "we beat him", she also sought to charge them with "obstructing the course of justice", a misdemeanor who was sentenced to three years in prison.

You must be asking what about that Titi, who threw a stone from a few meters away at the face of an Israeli police officer?

Well, after he confessed to entering Israel illegally, and assault under aggravated circumstances, and after the court spoke highly of his actions, which were "obviously serious" and that "beyond the risk to the policeman's body, which the defendant's actions created, they constitute a challenge to the sovereignty of the state and the rule of law", the judge chose to impose only eight months of actual imprisonment on him.

We will emphasize again: the terrorist got out with eight months in prison, when the charges attributed to the police reached seven years in prison.

A month after our publication here, after a hearing, and after we had to give up running for the position of deputy chief and the attempt to be appointed to the position of commander of the operations branch in the Jerusalem district, it was decided to close the case of the commander of the Temple Mount.

It was decided to transfer the case of the others to disciplinary proceedings.

A year has passed since the proceedings against them were opened, their lives were put on hold, and they are still waiting.

The stone thrower, meanwhile, continues his life as if nothing had happened.

Security forces arrest a wanted man who tried to escape

In the video: special documentation from the helmet cameras of the IOSH police officers - this is how the wanted man who tried to escape from the forces was arrested (police spokeswoman)

And one more outrageous story to end.

Seven months ago, we told here the story of an undercover force of the Border Guard that arrived in Rahat, with the aim of arresting two Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, who entered Israel illegally, and were required to be investigated by the Shin Bet. In summary, three people at the scene of the incident pointed weapons at the MGB force, An exchange of gunfire ensued, and in the end, an MGB fighter shot dead one of the three, who he said had pointed a gun at him.

The Minister of Internal Security, Amr Bar-Lev, praised the fighter's performance the very next day.

"As it was reported to me," he said, "there was a threat to the life of that security guard soldier.

An Arab resident of the place stood in front of him with a drawn gun with a bullet in the barrel.

At the same time, two more armed men from a different angle appeared, and he found himself in a life-threatening situation, so he acted as he should, to the best of my professional understanding, an MGB fighter... There is no doubt that there was a life-threatening situation here. What do we expect? B, who finds himself early in the morning in front of a man who turns out in retrospect to be holding a weapon without a license, and whose magazine is loaded, and the whole story is who pulls the trigger first - do you expect him to bare his chest and wait?"

The minister is right. But what? Immediately after the incident, she took a "She took the warrior's weapon and interrogated her with a warning as a suspect in causing death.

This week I called Attorney Nir Pelser, the fighter's attorney, to check how the case was closed. You won't believe it. It still hasn't been closed. Since the initial investigation of the fighter, he has not been called for any further investigation. For seven months he has been walking around with a difficult case, which Suspected of causing death, does that make sense to you? And that's not all. In Berhat, a city and a mother in Israel, a "martyr's square" was erected in memory of that criminal whom the brave policeman eliminated, and in the center of it is an impressive monument with the picture of the deceased. It seems that there is nothing like this story to describe the The situation. Something here is working crooked. And if someone doesn't wake up, we will find ourselves in the next round of nationalist violence with cops who have seen what the country is doing to their friends, and their only goal is to get home safely.

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