Following the exposure of Israel Hayom: Interior Minister Moshe Arbel sent a letter Sunday evening to the judges' ombudsman, retired judge Uri Shoham, against Judge Itai Harmelin, who demanded in several hearings that the Nachshon Unit guards remove inscriptions in favor of the State of Israel or alternatively state symbols during the hearings.
Most striking and jarring of all is Judge Hermelin's refusal to place an Israeli flag behind a suspect during a visual conference hearing. According to Channel 12 News, this was the exchange between the judge and members of the Nachshon unit:
Judge: Why is the Israeli flag behind the detainee?
Unit personnel: That's how it is with us these days.
Judge: I don't accept.
Members of the unit: Also behind you, His Excellency, the symbol of the state.
Needless to say, the truth is with the Nachshon Unit personnel, indeed, had the suspect been brought to the courtroom as is customary in routine times, the suspect would have stood next to the national flag and emblem. It is unclear why there is anything wrong with placing an Israeli flag next to a suspect while he is in a detention center of the Israel Prison Services and participating in a detention hearing by visual conference. On the contrary, the prison service did well to equalize, as much as possible, the conditions of the hearing by visual conference with the conditions of the hearing in the courtroom.
Beyond this "technical" explanation, it is impossible to ignore the special circumstances surrounding the detention hearings during this period. The State of Israel is at war following the most murderous terrorist attack in its history. In parallel to the war effort, all enforcement agencies are working against the incitement existing on social networks against Israeli citizens and calls in favor of the terrorist acts carried out.
The Israel Prison Service plays an important role in this struggle, which is essential and an integral part of the fight against terrorism. Many law enforcement officers lost their lives in the October 7 terrorist attacks. This is the time to thank the members of the security forces, to strengthen them and to trust their judgment in areas within their expertise and not to insist on matters that it is not appropriate to insist on, and certainly when we are dealing with presenting the national flag, which is always appropriate and appropriate in official proceedings of the State of Israel.
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