The Israel Policy Center

המרכז המדיני לישראל

Building A Jewish Democracy

IPC Investigates Politically Motivated Police Violence

The Israel Policy Center has initiated a new human rights project, investigating cases in which unwarranted police violence is employed by the state for illegitimate political objectives. Cases selected for investigation must meet three criteria:

a) They involve the use of police power for illegitimate objects, i.e. to serve the convenience of those in authority rather than a legitimate public purpose;

b) They involve many victims rather than one or a few;

c) They involve the violation of a fundamental right.

As of now the investigation covers three recent episodes:

1. “Eastern Gate.” Eastern Gate is a Jewish owned area of 180 hectares (45 acres) in Jerusalem, between the Jewish neighborhood of French Hill and the Arab neighborhood of Anata. License to develop the property is in the hands of a real estate development firm, “Mountain Dwellers Inc.” Part of the property was seized by the IDF for the purpose of constructing a segment of Israel’s security barrier. Other parts have been seized by illegal Arab squatters. During the month of July and August, Mountain Dwellers sought to realize its property rights and develop the land, at first by establishing an olive orchard. On three separate occasions police arrested Mountain Dwellers’ representatives and charged them with illegal entry. Mountain Dwellers maintains that the police entered its property illegally and without a warrant and interrupted its work without cause.

Mountain Dwellers’ workers were arrested, charged with various crimes, and a police prosecutor demanded that the court force them to keep away from the property for six months (!) as a condition of their release. Several suffered violence at the hands of the police. In addition the police arrested the CEO of Mountain Dwellers, Mr. Aryeh King, and sought to have him commit himself to refraining from developing the property as a condition of his release. A judge released King, and ordered the police to stop interfering with Mountain Dwellers.

At issue is the possibility that if Mountain Dwellers establishes permanent use of its property, the IDF will be required to move the security fence. The IDF, for its part, appears to have instructed the police to prevent Mountain Dwellers from utilizing its property rights, even though the IDF had no intention of seizing the property outright or paying for it.

2. Modi’in. On September 2 various activist groups planned a demonstration against OC Central Command, Gen. Gadi Shamni, at his home in Re’ut, a suburb of the town of Modi’in. Police tracked the busses hired by the demonstrators, stopped them at the side of the road, and hauled dozens of protestors off to the local police station to be investigated for charges of “conspiring to participate in an illegal demonstration.” IPC has identified at least six attested cases where demonstrators were beaten by policemen within the Modi’in police station while under interrogation.

3. Zichron Yaakov. On August 5 a group of left-wing activists tried to demonstrate outside the home of Col. Aviv Reshef, commander of the Binyamin Brigade, to protest the killing of a Palestinian youth during demonstrations against construction of the security fence on the outskirts of the village of Bil’in.

The group of activists in question is notorious for instigating violent demonstrations by Palestinians and left-wing Israelis against the construction of Israel’s security fence near the village of Bil’in. Israeli authorities have done nothing to halt this activity or to arrest those responsible for repeatedly inciting crowds of demonstrators to mass acts of political violence, even though several Israeli soldiers and policemen have been injured as a result.

When, however, these same activists tried to hold a nonviolent demonstration against a senior IDF commander in the vicinity of his home, the police sprang into action. Police action followed the pattern at Modi’in: The demonstration was broken up, and the demonstrators were arrested and charged for attempting to demonstrate. Several became the victims of deliberate and unwarranted police violence.

These cases demonstrate a pattern of illegal and unwarranted use of the police’s authority, as well as illegal police brutality, not for any legitimate purpose of public order but for the convenience of people in authority: Senior IDF officers who would prefer not view demonstrations as they drive home to dinner, or who find it convenient (and cheaper) to prevent citizens from enjoying their legitimate property rights.

IPC seeks to demonstrate that the problem of unwarranted police action is not the problem of any one sector of the population, but affects everybody, no matter what his views, whose legitimate activities are viewed with disfavor by people in authority. This is the best approach to securing support for effective reform from a wide spectrum of opinion in the public and the Knesset.

The project underlines the need for an impartial body whose task is to review police action and ensure that the rights of citizens are not violated at the whim of powerful people. We would like to look forward to the day when a senior IDF commander, complaining about a scheduled demonstration, is told by his opposite number in the police, “Sorry, pal, that’s part of democracy. We’re not getting involved.”