Throughout 125 pages full of content and detailed text today (Wednesday) State Comptroller Mateniho Engelman accuses the police, the Shin Bet and the various security forces of turning a blind eye for a long time to the extreme nationalist trends among Israeli Arabs, which culminated in the “Guardian of the Walls” events in May 2021. No Less serious than that, the auditor points to a turning a blind eye that continued in the corridors of the enforcement system even after the operation in regards to the investigations and legal proceedings against the violators.
The reactions to the auditor’s report on the Guardian of the Walls: “The State of Israel is not ready for the next time”
Over the course of many months, the auditor examined the conduct of the police, the government, the Shin Bet, the MGB, the intelligence agencies and the prosecutor’s office, talked with the residents of the cities involved, Jews and Arabs and other agencies. The conclusions he lays out in the report are disturbing and difficult.
Poor preparation
Ignoring the rise of nationalist tension, according to the auditor, began as early as 2018. “In the years 2018-2021, the police stations in the involved cities of Jaffa, Acre, and Lod did not classify cases on a nationalistic basis and as a result did not handle cases in their nationalistic context,” he writes in the report. Although monitoring of demonstrations and protests with a nationalist background in Jaffa indicated an increase from 12 incidents in 2017 to 31 incidents in 2018. In 2021, close to the Walls Guard incidents, criminal cases classified as cases with a nationalist background began to be handled.”
In the report, the auditor suggests that the police retrace their steps four years back and “examine the reasons why during the years 2018-2020 no cases were opened at the police stations on a nationalistic background, this at a time when police summaries indicate that the police are required to deal with cases of this nature.”
Three civilians were murdered and hundreds were injured (including about 306 police officers) in about 520 documented incidents, at the peak of which, according to the assessment of authorized security officials, about 6,000 Israeli Arab residents participated at one time. About 3,200 people involved were arrested, of which about 240 were Jews. The total financial damage caused by the events is estimated at about NIS 48 million for civilian property and about NIS 10 million for police property.
According to the document, in many cases and in particular in the first days of the events, the police did not give the necessary operational response to the threat they themselves defined, certainly not within relevant time frames. The gaps in the police response were reflected in the failure to respond to residents’ inquiries to the hotline. It turned out that the police were not adequately equipped for the attribution scenarios they defined for themselves. Thus, according to the police scenarios, it was necessary to prepare to deal with events that may last 20 days, but the stocks were far from serving these goals. For example, in the Coastal District under the command of Superintendent Yoram Sofer, the means of dispersing demonstrations ran out already on the first day of the events, and the forces operating in the Central District also suffered from shortages, and in addition, from a lack of radios and protective equipment for the forces in the field.
According to the auditor, the lack of alertness to the nationalist tension also resulted in the Shin Bet’s ignoring the trend of rising tension in the Arab sector, and the potential risk of an outbreak of points of friction between Jews and Arabs. According to the report, the General Security Service assessed that the events that actually took place were local, and the main emphasis was placed on Jerusalem. When Shin Bet forces were mobilized to operate in mixed cities during the Wall Guard events, they encountered operational difficulties due to coordination problems with the police.
Most disorder participants are still roaming free
In addition to criticizing the conduct of the police forces before the days of the Wall Guard and during the riots, the critic points to the failures of the investigation and the legal proceedings against the rioters. During the “Guardian of the Walls” operation, over 3,000 rioters who participated in the riots were arrested, but only 18% of them were charged. As of today, most of the participants in the nationalist riots are walking around freely. Engelman strongly criticized the fact that by the time the audit was completed, no civil lawsuits had yet been filed for compensation for the damages caused to state property and for the recovery of compensation money paid to the victims.
According to the report, gaps were found regarding the documentation capabilities of the police, including their ability to collect video evidence against suspects of involvement in the incidents of disorder. Police stations will also be staffed with investigators who have no experience in investigating incidents of disorder on a nationalistic basis and with investigators who do not speak Arabic. In the case of suspects Many did not gather enough evidence, detainees who participated in the riots were released, and their cases were closed without indictments being filed against them.
The auditor also found failures regarding the prosecution of suspects participating in the riots. He points out that on 13.5.21 the head of the investigation section of the police instructed that whenever an investigation file is opened in connection with an incident of incitement and violence during the riots, it must be stated in the report that the motive is “hostile actions”. Despite this, an examination carried out by the auditor reveals that there is a gap between the Shin Bet’s determination that the incidents of violence in the cities involved were characterized by a nationalist dimension and the imposition of terror on a normative population, and the proportion of suspects who were ultimately prosecuted for racially motivated offenses (3%) or terrorist offenses with a motive Racist (11%).
The Shin Bet: We recognized from the beginning that this was an escalation based on nationalism
The Shin Bet responded to the auditor’s report, which directs many complaints to the organization, and said that “the findings and conclusions of the state auditor’s report are studied and integrated into the service’s activity, which already took place during the events and even more so after them, as well as to investigate and draw lessons from the events. From the beginning of 2022, the Shin Bet decided within its mandate to expand its activities in the Arab sector in general and in the involved cities in particular. Areas were determined in which the service’s activity would be expanded and deepened, with an emphasis on issues in the field of national public order and the interface between criminal and security activities. These moves are made in accordance with the authority of the service according to law and within Ongoing dialogue with the legal advisors to the government and the Israel Police.
As stated in the report, the Shin Bet pointed to basic phenomena in Arab society, as well as an escalation over time, which received a regular response in police preparations for protest events, even violent ones. Contrary to what was stated in the report, the Shin Bet recognized from the moment the events began that it was an escalation on a nationalist background and accordingly conducted operations in the military and in the field to provide real-time intelligence and countermeasures in accordance with the warnings it passed. The Shin Bet led to the filing of indictments against 133 perpetrators involved in the events and the decoding of 28 attacks . It should be noted that during this period the Shin Bet was simultaneously engaged in an extensive attack activity in Gaza that helped the quick end of the campaign, as well as an activity to prevent an outbreak in IOSH.
It was also reported that “It is important to note that the Shin Bet is subject to the limitations of the law and the restraint of force when it comes to the depth of coverage against Israeli citizens. In conclusion, alongside the Shin Bet’s responsibility for detecting and thwarting ahead of time, it would be right to reiterate that the possibility of predicting, and correspondingly also preventing, an event of a mass outbreak is challenging and limited by its very nature, it would be right to deal with the trends and deal with them. These issues are under the care of several authorities in Israel, And the service works to reduce the risk of a widespread outbreak.”
The Ministry of Internal Security stated in response to the report that “During the past year, the Ministry of Internal Security and the Israel Police carried out an in-depth and thorough process of drawing lessons from the events of the Wall Guard. This process was manifested in a long series of steps, actions and processes to increase national preparedness for large-scale disturbances, and with a special emphasis on increasing personal security in the cities involved, in Arab society, in the Negev and in Jerusalem.
When Minister Bar-Lev took office, after the Wall Guard operation, a series of headquarters works, investigations, learning processes, practice and improvement were carried out under his direction in order to draw the lessons from the Wall Guard events and distill from them detailed plans for immediate implementation. The topic of preparedness for incidents of disorder at the national level and potential points of friction within Israeli society were defined within the policy goals of the minister, and from this, implementation processes were dictated in the Ministry of Internal Security, the police, and other internal security systems. For the first time, the Ministry of Internal Security, with the Israel Police, built a national attribution scenario for incidents of disorder and civil conflagration. The Israel Police was strengthened in 2022 with an unprecedented amount of standards – about 1,380 standards were added to the police, of which over 500 are permanent standards for the Police.
The Israel Police also responded to the report: “The Israel Police welcomes the State Comptroller’s report and will work to implement the issues raised in it. Moreover, a significant portion of the comments made in the Comptroller’s report were examined and addressed by the police even before its publication, as part of control and learning processes They were held by the police after the ‘Guardian of the Walls’ operation. The audit report raises important and central issues, most of which are on the agenda of the police and have received a lot of organizational attention for a long time.
“With the beginning of the occurrence of the events and the formation of the situation, which included a large and unusual number of scenes of disorderly incidents and shooting from the Gaza Strip, the forces were reinforced and all the necessary actions were carried out in order to deal with the incidents in the places where violent disorderly incidents occurred. Among other things, the forces were diverted according to situation assessments and their availability, Mission headquarters were established, the forces were reinforced and 20 reserve companies of the Guard were recruited, numbering about 2,000 fighters.
“From the beginning of the events, an orderly procedure was carried out to compile a situational picture at a national level. Due to the number of incidents and their scope, the procedure of accurate situational picture continued continuously. The deployment of forces at the beginning of the events was based on a situational assessment and the intelligence that existed. As the situational picture was formed and additional operational forces were accumulated, these were directed to the focal points Many in the different cities.
“The intelligence division presented a reliable, up-to-date and comprehensive intelligence situation assessment which emphasized the intelligence picture based on information that was available at that given time. As the intelligence picture changed, the police acted accordingly. We are also working to recruit police officers from among Arab society as patrols, detectives and investigators in order to To increase cooperation and service to the Arab society.
The Israel Police will continue to act resolutely to prevent riots, arrest troublemakers and enforce the law and maintain public peace and security, handle immediate emergencies and save human lives.”