The clashes between Jews and Israeli Arabs in mixed towns were worse than the public believed and bordered on anarchy, newly-appointed Border Police Commissioner Maj. Gen. Amir Cohen told Israel Hayom on Wednesday, adding that he is concerned that the calm of the past few weeks would prove an illusion.
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The violent clashes earlier this month – the worst in decades – "was the stuff of nightmares," he said.
Cohen, who assumed command of the Border Police three months ago, admits that the police should have increased its presence in flashpoint areas earlier than it did.
"The police are not to blame for the riots nor for the vandalism, or brutality," he said of the shocking events in Lod, where clashes were so severe the city had to be placed on emergency lockdown. "But I agree that in the first hours the results were not good.
"One has to look at the big picture," he said. "That day, tens of thousands of rioters flooded the streets of Lod, Acre, Jerusalem, Haifa, Jaffa, Bat Yam, and Umm al-Fahm, and even if the police had hundreds of additional policemen, unfortunately, we still would not have been able to be everywhere.
"The police and the Border Police are limited by such intense events over their sheer geographical spread. It was impossible given the existing manpower."
The May riots were the first time 20 companies of reservist border policemen were called up.
"We managed to put out this fire in Israeli society in a very, very short time. I won't go into who is to blame and what preceded these events, but it is a state-level event. It wasn't a police-level event that we could have solved by force even if we had deployed 5,000 policemen."
Cohen admits that "we had poor performance early on" in the riots, but stressed that "it took a little time, but we took control of the incident. We arrested more than 1,500 suspects and we continue to do so with nightly arrests of relevant suspects."
One of the things that most took him aback was the hatred targeting the police.
"I'm concerned by the physical violence that was directed at us. The pursuit of friction with us – it was never this intense before. Things need to be put on the table: there's a nationalist element here that is very troubling.
"We're not the IDF, which faces a known, familiar enemy – we're police officers facing with our fellow Israelis. I never expected an Israeli citizen, even an Israel Arab, to point a gun at law enforcement.
"I saw mobs storming innocent by standards. I'm concerned that the residents of these [mixed] cities will take the law into their own hands."
Commenting on videos posted on social media, depicting Israeli Arabs taunting border policemen who do not respond, Cohen said, "It is impossible to fight it, but we can't afford to get confused. We know exactly what the mission is and our ability to use the power we have wisely is our strength as a police force in Israeli society.
"We don't want civilian casualties in these indicants. So someone flashed the 'V' sign at us. I don't like it either – it makes my stomach turn."
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