On Sunday, Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra suddenly
dismissed Cmdr. Moshe Mizrachi, head of the Police
Investigations Unit, from his post. About a year ago, then-
attorney-general Elyakim Rubinstein recommended that be
removed from his post for illicit wiretapping and
transcribing recordings and hoarding them for undisclosed
future use.
Mizrachi's transgressions were a catalog of civil liberties
abuses. Going well beyond the few court warrants that he had,
he tapped public and private conversations of politicians
— including Binyamin Netanyahu, Moshe Katsav, Avigdor
Lieberman, Avigdor Kahalani, and David Levy — lawyers,
journalists and businessmen. Also recorded were conversations
of the families of these people including their spouses,
children, elderly parents, doctors, service providers,
friends and casual acquaintances.
Transcripts were made of these conversations, some of them of
an intensely personal nature, and they were stored in
Mizrachi's safe. Some were bound in files labeled "political"
leaving no doubt about the intent behind the collecting and
storing of the material.
The charges against Mizrachi were quite severe, but when an
internal police investigation was undertaken, Mizrachi
blatantly refused to cooperate. For someone in such a senior
position who is the subject of such serious charges of abuse,
that is usually the ticket to immediate public perdition.
Nonetheless, no real steps were taken against Mizrachi for a
long time. It was well known that he is a favorite of the
media, the legal community, and many politicians, especially
on the Left.
Although critics claimed that Ezra's move was driven by
internal Likud politics, in fact he took a big risk in
dismissing the inspector. He may suffer because of the
displeasure of the legal and opinion-molding establishments.
Tzachi Hanegbi, the previous Internal Security Minister,
didn't act. Former inspector-general Shlomo Aharonishky
merely entered a reprimand on Mizrachi's record just before
he left his post.
However, recently Likud MK Gilad Erdan petitioned the High
Court to prosecute Mizrachi on criminal charges. Three weeks
ago the court rejected his petition but it upheld
Rubinstein's recommendation that "administrative measures"
should be taken against Mizrachi. Soon after, Ezra put
Mizrachi on notice that such measures were again pending.
Much of the wiretapping seems not to have been conducted as
part of any ongoing investigation but rather just to find
something against Mizrachi's targets.
About four years ago several former police officers who had
worked for Mizrachi blew the whistle, but press reports were
systematically ignored. Police officer Stanislav Yazamsky
removed a few transcripts and brought them to Rubinstein's
attention. Rubinstein said that what he found made his hair
stand on end.
Yated included a report of these activities in our
issue of parshas Ki Siso, 5762, in an article
entitled, "Under and Above the Law in Israel," that described
a number of cases in which high-placed figures were
apparently able to flout the law without penalty. Also
featured in that article was Professor Yehuda Hiss, head
pathologist of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, who had been
the subject of a long string of complaints and charges
stretching back many years. Hiss was finally removed from his
position of power this past June.
Interesting about the dismissal of Mizrachi was the response
from those who always champion our civil liberties. They
claimed to see nothing wrong in the spectacle of a high
police officer collecting illegally obtained personal and
political dossiers against public figures. Yossi Sarid said
that "in the battle between cops and robbers, Ezra took the
side of the robbers."
Apparently more objective observers noted that while Mizrachi
may have done much to catch violators of the law, that does
not give him any right to trample legal privacy
protections.
