Around 6 AM Thursday, Ayalon Highway, Metropolitan Tel Aviv’s main artery, was finally open to traffic in both directions, after a few hundred anarchists had blocked all lanes and set fires on both sides of the highway with a group of 20 police officers looking on.
This is the law in Israel, 2023: the Police which has been documented for decades, including this year, beating up ruthlessly and dousing with stink water from cannons demonstrating Haredim, settlers, Ethiopians, and Arabs, do not touch privileged, white boomers.
This is how Eshed’s police manhandled Haredim in a demonstration in Bnei Brak this year.
?עמי אשד החלאה, כך פעל לגבי הפגנה בבני ברק.. לא ראינו כהוא זה באיילון.. pic.twitter.com/B064Bg8fGp
— ציפי שניידי (@ZSnyydy) July 5, 2023
And this is how police manhandled Haredim and their children in Jerusalem this year.
המפגינים עושים שימוש ציני בילדים ע”מ לחסום את הציר. pic.twitter.com/e3hB8lM4MF
— מחאות החרדים (@mechaot_h) June 18, 2023
This was the background to Wednesday night’s martyred resignation of Tel Aviv District Commander Superintendent Ami Eshed, who wore his uniform for an unprecedented attack on an elected public official before the media. Claiming he is “paying an unbearably heavy personal price for choosing to prevent a civil war,” Eshed––who had been collaborating with the anti-judicial reform protesters since February, ordering the highway closed to traffic so they could take it––condemned his ousting by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
He wasn’t ousted, by the way. Ben Gvir and the police commissioner announced that Eshed would be assigned to head the police academy. Eshed wasn’t fired, he resigned.
Minister Ben Gvir responded: “The words of Ami Eshed this evening prove that a political superintendent served in uniform in the Israel Police. I wished him success in the coming elections, and I wish that we succeed in the task of strengthening the police and meeting the great challenges ahead of us.”
In perfect coordination with Eshed’s speech of self-pity mixed with false claims, hundreds of protesters took to the Kaplan intersection and marched into Ayalon Highway with no police resistance. They set fires on the asphalt, carried speeches, blew their zambooras, and waved their flags, as 20 cops looked on.
This was the extent of police crowd-control Wednesday night. Kindly compare to the ruthless beating of Haredim in the tweets above:
האלימות לא תנצח! @Dovrut_Police @IL_police pic.twitter.com/vFZIC5ipvD
— Ami Dror ?? עמי דרור (@AmiDror) July 5, 2023
The demonstrations spread to about 40 locations around the country, including two in Jerusalem––in front of the PM’s and the President’s residences––where it was proven once again that a few hundred anarchists can paralyze the country if the police don’t stop them.
On Ayalon, after an hour of being stuck with thousands of other motorists, one young driver moved slowly through a group of demonstrators and pushed one of them who stood in his way. The incident was described as a mad plowing through the crowd. It wasn’t.
בשידור חי ב-#חדשותהערב: רכב דרס מפגינים באיילון@ittaishick pic.twitter.com/w8q9SZJ2ss
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) July 5, 2023
The driver was promptly arrested. Could the cops arrest a thousand cars whose drivers decided to slowly drive forward?
זה טרור.
שנו את דעתי. pic.twitter.com/XEpOslLFNi— הַשּׁוֹאֵל (@hashoell) July 5, 2023
Kan11 suspended its scheduled programming for the night and focused instead on play-by-play coverage of the demonstrations. Mind you, Kan11 is Israel’s public television, funded by taxpayer money. Using this public money, the channel turned itself into a night-long infomercial for the anti-reform forces. The other major channels did the same but to a lesser degree time-wise, because they have sponsors who don’t like it when viewers tire out by the same coverage and switch to Netflix.
