There are reports that the police were not allowing people with a Haredi appearance to pass in the direction of downtown Jerusalem last night, towards Ben Yehuda street.
The reason for blocking Haredim from going to Ben Yehuda was to keep them away from a rally against the violence and the stabbing that happened by a Haredi man at the LGBT parade the other day.
As if all haredi-looking people are threats for potential stabbings, because one was.
On the one hand it is a bit surreal to see Haredi websites (Ladaat, Kikar) supporting Haredim to go hang out on Ben Yehuda street, or even just being upset that the police were not allowing them to. I could probably imagine a few of my rebbeim from back in my yeshiva days that would give a sigh of relief to such reports and be happy the police are stopping the yeshiva boys and frum Jews from going there.
On the other hand, the police preventing all such people from going there is collective punishment, probably with no threat (at least there was none reported in the news).
This is similar to the barriers put up around Jerusalem in front of some bus stops and train stops to prevent car attacks. Instead of dealing with the terror, they put barriers up all around town. Instead of dealing with violent people, they'll just stop everybody looking a certain way from going there.
The police failed at their job. This Shlissel guy had been in jail for 10 years for doing the exact same thing 10 years ago at another LGBT parade. He got out 3 weeks ago. The police couldn't keep track of him, considering him a real potential threat? There is no reason he should have been allowed within a kilometer of this parade.
And to cover up their own failures, the police are taking it out on everybody else.
The police are failures in general. Between the sexual abuse accusations against much of the top echelon, and the accusations all over of undue violence by the police, and now such a failure like this, it is fair enough to say the police system in general is a big failure and needs to be revamped. They hardly provide any personal security to citizens around the country, and are mostly an authorized terror organization at this point.
Another example is a report that the police arrested someone in Kiryat Malachi. The cause? He wrote something on Facebook in support of Shlissel. They arrested him and sent him for psychiatric evaluation. source: Srugim
This fellow might be warped. He might have misplaced priorities. But saying something in support of Shlissel is not a reason for arrest. If the police of Israel are now also the thought police, if they decide what people can and cannot say, we are all in big trouble.
According to another report on Kikar, they arrested/detained a woman whose husband opposed the pride parade. They arrested the wife because they could not find the husband.
Is that a thing now? If a husband does something illegal, they can arrest his wife? According to the report the husband did not even do anything illegal, unless by now the police have declared it illegal to be opposed to a pride parade and express that verbally. The police are deciding on their own whim, which in my opinion is not reliable in any way based on the internal problems within the Israel Police, what people can and cannot say, what they can and cannot think, and who they feel like arresting.
Give Shlissel the electric chair. I don't really care. Put him away for life. Shlissel is not the story here. The real story is the police. The Minister of Internal Security, the man responsible for the police force, should be pressured to revamp the police system.
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