Opinion On democracy and personal security Israel today

I don't know if the announcements about changing the powers of the BTP minister over the police will materialize. Erdan told me that when he was the BTP minister, he demanded from Bibi that the police order be changed, and it was not changed, but it is important to present the implications to the public in advance.

Political enforcement is a fatal injury to the democratic core of Israel and the legitimacy of the police.

Well, the last few years have convinced me that the public is tired of discussing democracy.

There is nothing more serious than leaving the police for more than two years without a commissioner, yet not a single demonstration was held on the matter. There were some "crazy people" like me who spoke about it on professional platforms and little in the media. I did not hear an outcry and did not get the impression that there was real public pressure, not even when politicians "suppressed" " in appointment as a currency for political negotiations.

Moreover, my meetings with educators, supervisors and even citizenship teachers revealed a vast ignorance regarding the question of who the Commissioner is subordinate to. The answers were embarrassing. The vast majority did not know how to distinguish between the Chief of Staff's subordination to the Minister of Defense and the heads of the Shin Bet and the Mossad to the Prime Minister, and his independence of the commissioner (who is subject to the law from the moment of eight).

Even during the later crossing of the borders by Minister Ohana, when he enforced appointments within the police - including those that did not meet professional standards - there was silence.

Now, when the designated minister proudly tells us about a "parade" of officers making a pilgrimage to him, he is actually reporting to us about the deep damage that has already been done to the police in these years.

The public's indifference has an explanation.

We were told that the main problem is personal security, and that "governance" is needed to deal with it.

The governance?

Depends of course on the ability of the elected officials to control the "officials".

What they didn't tell us is how our personal and national security was harmed, precisely because of the violation of the independence of the police.

We were not told what happened to the crime figures since then;

We were not told that the Netanyahu government, in order to achieve "governance", concluded the 2019 budget already at the beginning of 2018, and to finance it, it cut hundreds of millions (!) of the program to deepen policing in Arab society, when it was at its peak.

In doing so, she not only canceled the 2018 budget, but also canceled the government's decision for a six-year plan in the coming years.

We were not told about the reduction of police officers at the stations and points already built by the Arab authorities, about the destruction of the technological array of the police and more.

The "Guardian of the Walls" events were a direct result of this neglect.

Thanks to the work of the police, the northern faction of the Islamic movement was outlawed and dramatically weakened, with an emphasis on its influence on Jerusalem and the Temple Mount.

The neglect allowed him to raise his head and strengthen his cooperation with the criminal organizations.

Policing is not pure Israeli knowledge.

Policing in a fractured and minority society is also not Israeli Torah.

I hope that the next minister will bring experts from the field of criminology to his desk and will discover that policing requires a close connection to the objects of policing, especially when it comes to minorities.

Any other approach will deepen the damage to personal security, which will escalate the steps and God forbid... If personal security is important, it's a shame that we only discover it on the brink of chaos.

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