I am not a prophet, but it was not difficult to predict the deterioration of the police to the state it had reached. Yet it hurts to watch a magnificent organization, with thousands of excellent police officers and commanders, lying on the floor, crushed and battered to the point of bloodshed.
When did it all begin? In this column I will try to touch on a few points that led to the stinging failure. After an unsuccessful attempt to parachute an officer with the rank of brigadier general to the police to fill the position of police commissioner, Chief Superintendent Roni Alsheikh was appointed to the position, and despite not growing up in the police, managed to integrate into its work. That is, until it was discovered that the guy also had a spinal cord - and then began the "dance of swords" that led politicians to beat up the police and their investigators, culminating in the call to "investigate the investigators."
The police are one body, and discrediting a group of people can hurt the morale of all the officers. Even those who perform other tasks who very quickly understand the message and adapt motivation to the spirit of the hour. Alsheikh left the organization even before a replacement was appointed, leaving a vacuum in the position of police commissioner (for the second time in three years, when even after the retirement of Chief Superintendent Yohanan Danino, the police remained without the appointment of a police commissioner and the position of acting commissioner was assigned to Commissioner Benzi Seo).
Commissioner Moti Cohen was asked to fill the position of Police Commissioner for three months, a period that was extended time after time (8 times) until my colleague and I filed a pre-High Court case against then-Public Security Minister MK Amir Ohana, who decided two years later that Commissioner Moti Cohen served as acting police commissioner (and it turned out that he also had a backbone) to terminate his position and appoint Kobi Shabtai to the position. Commissioner Moti Cohen deserves special mention because although he did not wear the rank of Rabbi Nitzev, he fulfilled the position with distinction during a sensitive and complex period during the coronavirus.
But a deputy commissioner, competent as he may be, cannot fulfill the required tasks. The police commissioner is more concerned with building the force than operating it. He was required to analyze the attribution threats of the police and accordingly prepare them for the anticipated tasks. An acting police commissioner who does not know the horizon of his job deals with maintaining the existing one.
In the reality of that challenging period, the police were busy dispersing demonstrations every Saturday night in front of the prime minister's residence and in other places throughout the country, locating elderly women on the beach in order to write them tickets for not wearing a mask. These are two tasks that do not contribute to increasing public trust in the police. I warned even then that imposing this task of enforcing the wearing of masks on the police would cause future damage, and even in one of my conversations with the minister in charge I said that if I were commissioner I would refuse to carry it out. This is the place to note that leaving the police without appointing a permanent police commissioner, despite Moti Cohen's excellence as a substitute, is the main breaking point from which the police suffer to this day.
Appointed after failed attempts to appoint others. Kobi Shabtai (Archive), Photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Deterioration and mistrust
Chief Rabbi Kobi Shabtai was appointed to the position, after failed attempts to appoint other candidates. Kobi is a commander with many rights, but he was appointed hastily, without prior and orderly preparation, despite the fact that he did not fulfill the customary district commander position or even a staff position that contributes to understanding the work of the police.
And even before he sat down in the police commissioner's chair, the police, which excelled in carrying out national missions, experienced the resounding failure of the Meron disaster, and immediately afterwards the police were caught with utter unpreparedness in Operation Guardian of the Walls, where they failed colossally.
From here the rate of deterioration increased and increased. Eleven members of the command staff expressed disbelief and resigned, some quietly and some in a thunderous voice. At the same time, Police Commissioner Shabtai and Minister Omer Bar Lev led a plan with the Ministry of Finance for a "salary roof" agreement, which six police commissioners before him refused to accept. An agreement that contains a honey trap for those who are not familiar with the nature of the organization. At the time, I personally warned the minister and police commissioner not to sign this agreement, which could deal the organization a fatal blow.
Unfortunately which my destiny came. Over the course of a year and a half, 2,000 officers with seniority and experience left the police, and potential candidates are reluctant to join the police. Unfortunately, the police decided to make two more mistakes with future consequences: to lower the criteria for recruitment and to shorten the duration of training. A policeman threatened a shelf product. A policeman is a complex profession, especially in the State of Israel. Compromising the quality of recruits and the duration of training has a devastating long-term effect.
Without a basic understanding of the role of the police. Itamar Ben-Gvir (archive), photo: Jonathan Zindel/Flash90
Fights commanders, not criminals
Then, while the police were moving from the internal intensive care unit, MK Itamar Ben-Gvir was appointed public security minister. For his contribution to the destruction of the police, I will need another column. Here I note that beyond the fact that he was appointed to the complex position, a man who took basic managerial skills and did not have the experience of serving in a military unit, he is also a person who does not have a basic understanding of the role of the police in a democratic society. A man who had even set foot in the office had proposed an amendment to the Police Ordinance that would transfer the powers of the police commissioner to him.
This is the place to say that the fact that Itamar Ben-Gvir lacks a history as a "general" is not what should have prevented him from succeeding in his position. History shows that ministers who came without a security background, such as Moshe Shahal and Tzachi Hanegbi, contributed more to its advancement than those who came with a rich security background.
Ben-Gvir's inauguration was accompanied by loud noise. He plunged the organization into instability, fought the police commissioner and district commanders instead of the protection fee collectors, and engaged in spin and tendentious leaks against the police and their commanders. He continued to leverage the establishment of the National Guard as if it were the cure for the ills of the police and crime in the Arab sector, without knowing that the police already had a National Guard, only under a different name: the Border Police. Instead of adapting the Border Police to the new challenges, the minister continued with election propaganda.
The police have no right to exist without two main pillars: public trust in the police and deterrence against criminals. Unfortunately, during the tenure of Minister Ben-Gvir and Police Commissioner Shabtai, these two collapsed.
The minister, who does not understand that the Arab public is also part of Israel's citizens and that its people need police services and protection from those who try to disrupt the social order among them, has become a minister in contrast to a population of about 2 million citizens who are unwilling to meet him. The police commissioner, despite being warned several times by my colleague, was dragged after the minister and fell in every hole he threw at him.
Ben-Gvir at the scene of the Yafia massacre: "Decades of neglect are exploding in our faces" // Photo: Archive, Ministry of Security
The rehabilitation of the police will be long
Recently I have been asked by many why I was alarmed by the situation and why I take the situation of the police to heart. The answer is simple: because I love her. I love the police officers and I know how hard they work. It pains me to see the police crushed.
In recent days, we have also watched the minister's vile and cowardly behavior when his associates announced through the media his decision to end his term as police commissioner at the end of the year. This, without realizing that in his unfriendly, immoral and unethical act, he turns the police commissioner into a worthless puppet and begins the "dance of swords" among the police extras, who instead of dealing with the serious problems facing them, will now deal with the ugly war in the audition process "Commissioner is born."
Chief Superintendent Shabtai, an officer with many rights, is a brave man who specialized during his years of service as a fighter in the war against terrorists and always won. He was less concerned while serving in the war on criminals, so when he found a criminal in the Ministry of Public Security, he fell.
The Israel Police is shattered and will take a long time to rehabilitate. I don't know who the next police commissioner will be, but he needs prayers and blessings for success. The closest metaphor I have found to end this column is to say that after MK Itamar Ben-Gvir entered the intensive care unit and disconnected the police from the oxygen pipe, he is now also making a killing confession.
The writer is a retired Chief Superintendent who served as the 15th Commissioner of Police.
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