Feud rages between Barkat and security minister
Yitzhak Aharonovitch says ‘narrow political considerations’ motivated Jerusalem mayor to blame government for failure to quell riots in capital
Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch hit back at Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat Sunday, accusing him of acting not out of concern for the public’s safety, but rather out of “narrow political considerations” that motivated the latter to issue a letter placing the blame on the minister for failed attempts to quell riots in the capital.
“I’m saddened by your letter and especially concerned that it was composed without taking the time to hold any conversation with me on the topic beforehand, not in order to learn about the subject and not in order to draw my attention to what is necessary, in your opinion,” Aharonovitch wrote to Barkat, according to the Walla news site.
“Instead, you were quick to publish the letter and give media interviews, based on narrow political considerations that don’t even take the safety of the citizens of Jerusalem into consideration.”
In a letter issued to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Friday, Barkat maintained that Aharonovitch had failed to provide Jerusalem security forces with the means necessary to bring an end to riots that have erupted sporadically in the capital’s eastern neighborhoods over the past months.
Barkat asserted that the uptick in violence was bearing heavily on the residents of the city, adding that the police officers in the city could not continue dealing with the unrest unless they received proper tools from the government, Walla reported.
Barkat’s irate comments come in the wake of accusations by the CEO of the Jerusalem Light Rail and by a Housing Ministry official that the Jerusalem police and the ministry have been attempting to cover up violent incidents in East Jerusalem.
According to CityPass CEO Yaron Ravid, police requested that CityPass not report rock-throwing attacks against the light rail because it harms police and encourages the offenders. Israel Radio subsequently reported that there had been no reports to the media by police or CityPass of violent attacks against the light rail over the last two weeks, even though numerous incidents have occurred.
In response to the allegations, police acknowledged that there had been 13 instances of attackers throwing rocks at the train and two arrests, one of which resulted in an indictment. In addition, police said, 75 people have been arrested on suspicion of rioting.
Later, an official from the Housing Ministry was quoted by Israel Radio as saying that guards employed by the ministry have been instructed not to report rock-throwing incidents in East Jerusalem in order not to discourage Jews from living in mixed neighborhoods.
The Housing Ministry responded that there has been a 20-percent uptick in incidents of rioting over the past several months, but in the last several days there has been a slight decrease.
Last week, however, Aharonovitch told reporters in Jerusalem that there had been a 30% decrease over the past two months in attacks involving rocks and Molotov cocktails.
The allegations came two weeks after a recording of Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat surfaced in which he accused CityPass of unnecessarily publicizing violent events in which there were no injuries.
Following the publication of the recording, Barkat stressed that he believed security forces must respond in a “harsh and uncompromising manner to any instances of violence carried out by rioters” in the capital. In a statement to The Times of Israel, the mayor further said he sought to “end the policy in which the courts release the rioters quickly and without severe punishment.”
Barkat added that it was “inconceivable for the light rail operators to halt the train’s movement of their own accord and against the opinion of the police, damaging both the residents of Jerusalem and our sovereignty over the city.”
The capital’s light rail train system has faced disruptions as a result of vandalism and riots that have erupted sporadically since the brutal killing of 16-year-old Shuafat resident Muhammed Abu Khdeir in early July, allegedly by Jewish extremists avenging the killings of three Jewish teenagers in the West Bank a month earlier. Frequent occurrences of rock and firebomb throwing at the light rail have damaged cars and left some of them unfit for use.
Hundreds of East Jerusalem residents have been arrested by police in the aftermath of such riots.
Following the death of another East Jerusalem teen, Mohammed Sinokrot, shot by police during a demonstration a month ago, Aharonovitch, the public security minister, said Jerusalem’s security forces were to get reinforcements to combat the rise in violence in the city’s eastern neighborhoods.
Aharonovitch did not provide details about the type of beefing up the city would receive.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
