Politicization has come out of the shadows
When Itamar Ben Gvir awarded Yoav Eliasi his ranks, he declared that he was fixing the police. But it was a corruption that demonstrated to us what an organization looks like that works for a minister and not for citizens.
If there was a fraction of time after October 7, 2023, when one could believe Yoav Eliasi ("HaTzel") that he really wanted to change, to be that rapper who replaces the rhythm of hatred with a calm pulse of unity, to leave behind angry texts of contempt in order to move on to writing new lines of compassion and upgrade his profile from an extreme right-wing activist who enjoys spreading fabricated news to a social activist who contributes his time to the community in which he lives, then it has long since passed.
It happened exactly two years ago — there was still a feeling of shared destiny in the air, and hostages were waiting in Gaza for us to come and save them — when Eliasi walked for the first time towards the outstretched arms of his patron Itamar Ben Gvir, and entered as an equal among equals through the main gate of the police. "I was privileged to receive officer ranks for my activity and the establishment of the standby unit that arrested dozens of illegal aliens and works day and night to keep the city safe," he shared with excitement with his 770,000 followers on Facebook, 28,000 on TikTok, and with hundreds of thousands of other viewers in television and radio reports, his feelings the day after the ceremony. "When the district commander in the presence of the minister called me to the stage and awarded me the ranks, I was as excited as I had never been in front of tens of thousands at Menora."
He received the opportunity to finally come out into the light, to move to the side of the righteous and the correct, and to prove that he was worthy of his new status as an official representative of the law, but "HaTzel" preferred to return to his natural place among the shadows. Where there is no great importance to the truth and it is allowed to deploy police officers to prevent the closing of a club, in areas struck by moral fog where there is no meaning to good and evil, and in territories protected from the Israeli law that applies to citizens who are not close friends of the appointed minister. There were no true intentions of deep value change here, only childish impulses of someone who never received a hug from the establishment and now became a part of it, and there is no need to be alarmed by recordings like "I am giving them an education there in the police" as Eliasi promised his people and even fulfilled — the club was not closed as the law requires in the case of attempted murder — because that is what politicization sounds like in spoken Hebrew.
And this is what happens when a minister pushes in friends from the street and admits it in the rank-awarding speech. "They are attacking me because I want to change, because I brought other things that were not in the police," he spoke before the audience as someone whose entire purpose of his mission in the world is to create pluralism and promote marginalized audiences whose voices are not heard and who do not have almost a million followers on social networks, and a multitude of close connections with senior government representatives with all their many officials, and continued calmly to position himself as someone who integrates citizens into police work.
Under the thunder of cannons and alarms, the operational procedures of the Israel Police were also forgotten, and if there was someone who tried to remind, like MK Naor Shiri from Yesh Atid, it did not really help him. "The awarding of ranks to Yoav, despite them being only representative, does not align with the operational procedures of the Israel Police," said Shiri in his role as a member of the National Security Committee and added: "Section 9 of those regulations prohibits a volunteer from expressing political opinions, and those regulations were established when the volunteer Lior Lipshitz was dismissed, after he expressed criticism of the conduct of the government and Minister Itamar Ben Gvir against the judicial revolution protest. Under the police of Itamar Ben Gvir, procedures and laws are relevant only to one side on the map, and that is where the State of Israel is heading."
The story about Yoav Eliasi and his path from the darkness of the streets to the white light of the fluorescents in the offices of the Department of Internal Police Investigations (Mahash) must be told honestly, and without fear: this was not a correction, but a corruption. There were no true intentions of deep value change here, only childish impulses of someone who never received a hug from the establishment and now became a part of it. Like the fulfillment of a dream, through a supernatural twist where you become a friend of the right people and they arrange for you an entry to the VIP, and in an alternative reality where you do not earn status because you tightened internal boundaries, made an effort to raise the bar of public ethics or made adjustments for the sake of high standards, but only because you spread a lot of poison on the networks and never stopped even after you received the opportunity of your life to prove otherwise.
In his eyes, Channel 12 "causes damage to Israel", Bogie Ya'alon is a "Hamas spokesperson", actress Maya Landsman is "in the vegetable department in some supermarket in Yavne next to an illegal alien named Ramzi, if you on the left had not awarded titles, money and publicity to everyone who fits your agenda", and in conclusion "there is no one like Bibi, eat your hearts out". Eliasi came to change the police, and the police did not come to change him. The trap of patriotism that he spread under our feet trembling from the horrors of the massacre — protecting the safety of the citizens of the most "leftist" city in the country without distinction of religion, party or gender still worked, an outfit of a large T-shirt and a baseball cap that was replaced with tactical uniforms, a musical instrument that was converted into a weapon, and a huge stage in front of hundreds of viewers next to Subliminal that was translated into a patrol car appearing at central intersections — did the work for him, gave him unnecessary credit of public recognition that he was never worthy of. Whether Mahash corrects the distortion or not, he has already demonstrated to us what a police force looks like from the inside that works for a minister and not for citizens.
