Former Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh told Army Radio Wednesday morning, referring to the investigations against Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu that ultimately led to his indictment: “It was impossible to guess that the Prime Minister would not resign. The precedent before our eyes was that of Olmert (the former PM who resigned even before his indictment), and [we did not expect that] the party would not tell him that for the good of the country, he should resign.”
Alsheikh’s statement is nothing short of an admission that the Police, in cahoots with the State Prosecution and the Attorney General, planned a coup d’état against an elected prime minister. needless to say, he should be indicted for sedition and treason today.
Religious Zionism Chairman and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich reacted to this bombshell, declaring: “Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of Israel. It is a sad day for the State of Israel. There are several participants here who joined together to defeat democracy and carry out a coup. Officials and former commanders who, during their time in office, tried to make moves to change the government and failed, joined together and are still trying to defeat the will of the Israeli voter. They will fail this time, too.”
Alsheikh was asked about a plea deal for Netanyahu and said: “I am directing this at the party that is fighting and does not understand that it should instead declare that for the good of the country, we are placing another person at the top.”
In other words, not only does the former chief of police, who also served as the head of the clandestine police, the Shin Bet, not deny his role in a coup d’état, he rebukes the Likud party for not going along with it!
According to Alsheikh, the plot against Netanyahu relied on the PM’s own statement against PM Olmert at the time of the latter’s indictment: “A prime minister who is immersed up to his neck in investigations has no moral and public mandate to decide on fateful issues for the State of Israel.”
“We all took into account what he said about Olmert,” Alsheikh. And then, realizing that he may have incriminated himself (in a country where the AG does not work for the opposition – DI), he quickly clarified: “There was no plan to impeach a sitting prime minister, no one anticipated what could happen as a result of filing an indictment according to a completely legal procedure.”
Under Alsheikh, Israel Police increased exponentially its use of spying apps such as the Pegasus, planting them in thousands of smartphones, often without explicit court permission, and using them beyond tapping conversations, to dig into the suspect’s social life, with or without a connection to the investigation at hand. In that sense, the former Shin Bet chief infused the police force with dark methods of investigation, where the rights of suspects were negligible. To squeeze testimony out of witnesses, police investigators used illegal imprisonment, mistreatment of relatives––including the elderly, and illegal financial restrictions on individuals.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir reacted to Alsheikh’s interview: “Alsheikh admits today that he tried to carry out a coup d’état through investigations and an indictment. He doesn’t care about democracy, he doesn’t care about the law, and all he wanted was to depose a sitting prime minister who was elected in democratic elections, through undemocratic means. No wonder they are so afraid of the judicial reform that will take the power from the oligarchy and finally return it to the people.”
Not a minute too soon.
Update: The Prosecutor’s office issued a denial [translated]:
“In response to the publications, the prosecutor’s office states that any statement as-if extraneous considerations were involved in the decision to file an indictment is unfounded. The indictment in the 1000’s cases was filed according to the evidence and based on professional considerations only. Mr. Alsheikh was not a participant in the discussions in which it was decided to file an indictment.”
