Ex-top cop says officers now given arrest quotas for protests; police: ‘Delusional claim’
Ben Gvir ‘allows himself to do whatever he wants,’ alleges Roni Alsheich; force responds that claim of discrimination against anti-government rallies lacks ‘any factual basis’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Former police chief Roni Alsheich alleged on Thursday that the force had become politicized and that officers have told him they are given quotas for the number of people that should be detained at protests, a claim that was denied as “delusional” by the Israel Police.
“I hear from officers that they come to a demonstration with a quota of detainees,” Alsheich told the Kan public broadcaster, apparently referring to demonstrations against government policy.
“I shudder when I say that. Beyond the fact that it is clearly illegal, it does not serve anyone,” he stated. “Something bad is happening and I don’t know where exactly it is coming from, but it’s coming from above.”
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who is in charge of the police force, “allows himself to do whatever he wants and the political system swallows it because it understands that without him there is no government,” Alsheich charged, adding that Ben Gvir “talks in forums about promoting officers who will advance his policy. This serves him and not the public.”
Police issued a strong denial of Alsheich’s accusation.
“The Israel Police is an apolitical body that carries out all of its responsibilities for the peace, security and quality of life of the public,” a spokesman told The Times of Israel in a statement.
“The delusional claim that during demonstrations, police officers arrive with an arrest quota is devoid of any factual basis or basis in reality, and we deny the statements made by the former police commissioner,” it said.
Alsheich served as police chief from 2015 to 2018, and oversaw the corruption investigations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that yielded the ongoing trial.
During the height of the demonstrations against the government’s judicial overhaul last year, a number of ministers, chief among them Ben Gvir, complained that police should be making more arrests and that, in some cases, protesters needed to be indicted.
In response, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara at the time filed a professional opinion that warned against trying to set any quotas for arrests or criminal prosecution of protesters.
Politicization
During his farewell ceremony this summer, then-outgoing Israel Police chief Kobi Shabtai warned against the politicization of the force, alluding to Ben Gvir’s behavior without directly naming him.
The outgoing chief said he was stepping down from his role “with an uneasy feeling” and that “the fight against the politicization of the police and its deviation from its professional path is in full swing.”
And last month, two years after Ben Gvir was appointed national security minister, Baharav-Miara told Netanyahu that he must reevaluate the far-right minister’s tenure, in light of the latter’s repeated and ongoing intervention into operational police matters and his politicization of police promotions.
In a letter to the prime minister, the attorney general told Netanyahu that Ben Gvir has, on a number of occasions, seemed to violate High Court decisions, as well as orders instructing him not to refrain from intervening in operational police matters.
“It appears that the minister is using his authority to make appointments and end the tenure of officers in a manner which constitutes illegitimate intervention in the operational running of the police,” Baharav-Miara wrote.
Baharav-Miara cited numerous acts of intervention by Ben Gvir into police operations, including publicly summoning senior police officials for a dressing down due to his displeasure at their handling of anti-government protests; declaring at a police operations room that he had gone there to ensure the police carried out his directives for handling protests; and a letter by Shabtai that Ben Gvir had instructed senior police officers to disregard cabinet orders regarding the protection of humanitarian aid convoys on their way to Gaza.
In response, Ben Gvir accused the attorney general of engaging in a fishing expedition, claiming that she had undertaken a search for a legal pretext to take action against him.
Baharav-Miara has clashed repeatedly with Ben Gvir over his handling of the police, even declaring a promotion by the far-right minister illegal and ordering the police commissioner to halt the dismissal of the force’s top legal adviser.
Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party has voted against bills related to the 2025 state budget following the last-minute cancelation of a planned meeting of Netanyahu’s senior coalition allies on the topic of firing Baharav-Miara.
Since then, coalition leaders have reportedly agreed in principle on how to move forward with a disciplinary hearing for her ahead of a potential firing — although Ben Gvir has demanded that the process be expedited.
Questioning a successor
During his interview on Thursday, Alsheich also questioned the process that saw Ben Gvir’s appointment of Daniel Levy to head the police force.
“The leap between district commander and commissioner is enormous. It’s not one step,” he said when asked to comment on Levy’s recent admission that he had a “longstanding friendship” with a key aide to Netanyahu.
Levy admitted to the relationship with the late Hanni Bleiweiss on Monday, several days after the airing of an investigative report by Channel 12’s “Uvda” television show about the dealings of Sara Netanyahu and allegations she acted to intimidate and harass those she viewed as her family’s enemies.
The exposé also touched on Bleiweiss’s apparently close ties to Levy over the years, before he became police chief. It claimed Bleiweiss had talked Levy up to Sara Netanyahu, and that Levy himself had offered messages of support for the premier through her. Bleiweiss died last year of cancer.
“Throughout my years of service in the Israel Police, I have always maintained integrity and acted with loyalty, professionalism, and without political motives,” Levy wrote in a letter to the force following the report.
Following the exposé, The Democrats party chief Yair Golan leveled what his spokesman described as an “explicit threat” at Levy, telling reporters that “Netanyahu and Ben Gvir will not always be here to protect you. On the day following the current government, the truth will come out and if necessary, we will also hold you to account.”
In response, Ben Gvir accused Golan of using rhetoric that constituted “a dangerous crossing of a red line and an intolerable threat to the rule of law.”
Jeremy Sharon and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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