Last update - 00:00 25/02/2007
Olmert to cabinet: It's time Israel had a respectable police force
By Gideon Alon, Haaretz Correspondent
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the cabinet at its weekly meeting on Sunday "stop ganging up on the police. It is time Israel had a police force whose officers cannot be ridiculed."
This remark was the prime minister's first public statement on the topic of the police since the publication of the The Zeiler Commission report of police failures surrounding the reputed Parinyan crime family. The Zeiler report called for the dismissal of top police officials, including Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi, who subsequently resigned.
Olmert asked at the meeting "to take advantage of this opportunity and congratulate the thousands of police officers who are fulfilling their duties with great courage and selflessness. This is the same police force that successfully foiled a planned terrorist bombing in Bat Yam last week, the same police force that battles crime every day. We don't have another police force."
Olmert also praised the exiting commissioner and described him as a "decent man that has contributed a lot to Israel's security."