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Ami Eshed resigned from the police force, saying he was removed from his post due to ‘political considerations’ over his handling of anti-government protests
Thousands of protestors spontaneously poured into the streets of Israel on Wednesday to express their anger over the dismissal of Tel Aviv police chief Amichai Eshed.
Demonstrations quickly led to major road blockages, including the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv, one of the country’s main avenues.
Protests also continued in Jerusalem after the police had cleared off the Ayalon highway. Four protesters were arrested.
Earlier in the evening, Eshed announced his resignation from the force, saying he was removed from his post due to “political considerations” and that he was paying “a terrible cost for my choice to prevent civil war.”
Israel’s Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, with whom Eshed had a rocky relationship, recently informed Tel Aviv’s top cop that he would be moved to lead a police internal training center, widely viewed as a demotion. Eshed had also outraged Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir for his refusal to use greater force against protestors amid the months-long demonstrations against the government’s proposed judicial overhaul.
“I could have easily used disproportionate force and filled the ER at Ichilov [Medical Center] at the end of every demonstration in Tel Aviv. We could have cleared Ayalon [Highway] within minutes at the terrible cost of cracking heads and breaking bones, at the cost of breaking the pact between police and the citizenry,” Eshed said during his press conference.
“I taught generations of policemen to recognize the limits of force, to safeguard our contract with the public… Unfortunately, for the first time in my three decades of service, I was met with the bizarre reality that calm and order are not the desired goal, but rather the opposite is.”
“At all times I saw before me one roadmap, one compass: Checks and balances, the Israeli law book, and the rules of morality and justice,” Eshed concluded.
Holding his own press conference, Ben-Gvir accused Eshed of “surrendering to the Israeli left,” saying, “The trickle of politics into senior police positions is a dangerous crossing of a line.”
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