Amid accusations, Hirsch dropped as top cop candidate

After weeks of controversy and reports of misconduct, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan announced Wednesday that he would rescind the nomination of former IDF brig. gen. Gal Hirsch as the next Israel Police commissioner.

The announcement came shortly after Channel 2 reported that Erdan, Hirsch and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Monday to discuss Hirsch’s impending investigation ahead of taking the top police post.

Erdan said in a statement clarifying the decision that “Gal Hirsch is not suspected of anything and nobody has filed a complaint against him.”

“He’s a guiltless individual and he’s untainted!” Erdan said. “Unfortunately, in the State of Israel investigating candidates is limited in time and in recent days it was clear to me that the process will continue an unknown amount of weeks, at least.”

Netanyahu said in a statement Wednesday, following the conclusion of the Yom Kippur holiday, that “Hirsch is the right man for the job of commissioner — thus I’ve thought and thus I think today, too.”

“But the process of appointment is difficult, prolonged and damaging, and doubtless worthy of reinvestigation,” he said. “Already Gal Hirsch’s good name has been harmed anew by critics for a month.”

It wasn’t immediately clear who would take Hirsch’s place as nominee for the top police job vacated earlier this year by former Israel Police chief Yohanan Danino. Benzi Sau, the deputy chief who was passed over for the top job, has been filling in as interim commander.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein said last week that a thorough examination of Hirsch’s businesses may take months and even then he could not guarantee that Hirsch would be totally in the clear.

Erdan had vehemently sought to appoint Hirsch, a former IDF officer and police outsider who went on to establish the Defensive Shield Holdings firm, as the next police chief, filling a gap in a police brass plagued with scandal. Senior police officers opposed the appointment from outside the force, and others also questioned Hirsch’s record during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

In a move Hirsch called politically motivated, senior police officers have showed Erdan information implying that some of Defensive Shield Holdings’ businesses abroad were not entirely aboveboard.

The company is a private security firm with a diverse array of services, and has done deals all over the world.

In one of its deals in Georgia, a former government minister who has fallen in disgrace and left the country, was accused of using the deal with Defensive Shield to siphon state money. The former minister was an ex-Israeli.

Weinstein criticized Erdan’s insistence on appointing someone from outside the police ranks to head the organization. Speaking at a conference of lawyers last week, Weinstein said in an apparent jibe at Erdan that “it is inconceivable to me that as the passion to appoint a chief from outside the police grows, the achievements of the Israel Police are made to look nonexistent.”

Jacob Turkel, head of a committee on the appointment of officials to senior positions, sent Erdan a letter last week where he took a noncommittal stance and said he cannot recommend for or against the appointment of Hirsch.

Since the minister who did business with Hirsch is a wanted man in his own country, Israel cannot easily obtain documents that can ensure once and for all whether some aspects of his business there were illegal.

Weinstein, aware of the potential harm to Hirsch’s reputation, suggested that he submit additional documentation that can help dispel the allegations the Georgian government made against his company.

According to Hebrew news website Ynet, Hirsch is also at liberty to come to the attorney general’s office for a private one-on-one hearing.