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Israeli police clash with anti-disengagement protestors at a demonstration last week. (AP)
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07/24
IsraelNationalNews.com |
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07/24
IsraelNationalNews.com |
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| By Israel Insider staff and partners July 24, 2005 |
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Negev police commander Brigadier-General Nisso Shacham was summoned for a disciplinary hearing this afternoon, after Israel's Channel 10 on Friday night showed video footage depicting Shacham instructing border police to beat any anti-pullout protestors who broke away from the Kfar Maimon group in an attempt to sneak into Gush Katif.
At the end of the meeting, Channel Ten reported, Shacham will face a disciplinary trial and will be transferred away from involvement in "disengagement" activities. He is likely to be demoted, political analysts reported.
The footage includes a fair share of vulgarities and explicit instructions to inflict pain on those persons apprehended trying to enter Gush Katif.
Shacham was shown telling a Border Police chief Deputy-Commander Roni Ohana on Wednesday: "I want arrests and I am telling you to use water cannons without holding back. Don't call me, just use the cannons. Shit on them. Let them burn. Use the cannons and batons. Hit them on their lower body and work the way you know how."
Learning of the footage and the Channel 10 program, Shacham explained his statements were made in a closed conversation with a senior officer following a number of days without sleep, expressing remorse for his harsh words. He said that this was not his usual style of speech, and that he was "tired" when the recording was made.
The Yesha Council did not accept this, releasing the following statement:
"Shacham's barbaric words were not said out of tiredness, as he claimed, but rather represent the dominant trend in the police since the struggle against the expulsion started. The farm family [the Sharons] are directly controlling the police... While we call on Gush Katif supporters to refrain from violence, the police are acting with violence and provocations."
The Council called upon the police to "get rid of the wild weeds before a calamity happens."
Israel Police officials have requested the tape from Channel 10 to review the conversation as well as the context in which the remarks were made.
In the meantime, MK Yisrael Katz (Likud) during the Sunday morning weekly cabinet meeting called for Shoham's suspension.
MK Michael Eitan (Likud), Chairman of the Knesset Law Committee, told PM Ariel Sharon he was disgusted with Shoham's "vulgar and primitive remarks" in favor of police brutality against protestors.
"Several days ago," Eitan wrote in a letter to Sharon, "during a Likud Knesset faction meeting in which you participated, I reported that the Knesset Law Committee had received much evidence of police violence against anti-disengagement protestors -- not only in the dispersal of demonstrations, but also in situations in which the protestors were beaten by policemen even when they [the victims] were already apprehended, handcuffed and helpless."
MK Eitan, who supports the expulsion, noted that he had asked that the legal proceedings against policemen accused of violence be sped up and that the suspects be suspended. He further wrote that he had asked Sharon to incorporate in his remarks of support for the police a warning not to use undue violence. "Unfortunately," Eitan wrote, "the investigations were not hurried up, and your voice on this matter was not heard."
Shacham's "vulgar and primitive remarks" are a "mark of shame for Israel Police," wrote Eitan, "and strengthen the sensation that there is a phenomenon of breaking the law within the police. If this is how senior and 'good' police officers think and talk publicly to the cameras, what are we to expect from junior officers and regular policemen in the police department halls and in the jails?"
"The fact that not one government minister went to the trouble of condemning or taking steps to correct this corruption is even more shocking."
Agriculture Minister Yisrael Katz addressed Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi at today's Cabinet session, and said that Shacham must be suspended -- "especially at this sensitive time, when sensitivity and patience are required," he said.
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