Police chief: Criminals use media campaigns to harm public trust in police
"We don’t want to be on the left side or the right side, we want to be on the side of the law."
By YONAH JEREMY BOBUpdated: FEBRUARY 20, 2018 09:16Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Police Chief Roni Alsheich(photo credit: EMIL SALMAN/POOL AND BAZ RATNER/REUTERS)
Discussing public corruption and the internet, Police Chief Roni Alsheich said on Tuesday that criminals use media campaigns to damage public trust in the police.Speaking at a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, he said that "the world of professional criminals always wanted to damage the public trust in order to damage the police.""During a trial, they try to damage the credibility of the police. In the internet age, the possibilities are endless. Every action can be presented as a mistake for a media campaign against the police... It enables countless manipulations," said Alsheich, appearing to address the heavy media attack on the police by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies in the shadow of Cases 1000, 2000 and 4,000 probes against him.Directly addressing the Netanyahu-police controversy, he said, "The police touch on very sensitive issues in society... it is not like the army which faces only what's going on at the border... If you are interrogating the prime minister or a minister, it's very sensitive for society."He continued, "People have lots of feelings about it. [Some] people think it’s a good job to do, [other] people think it’s the opposite. Our main issue is to keep ourselves natural, professional and being out of the discourse.""We see [coverage] in the media... we don’t want to be on the left side or the right side, we want to be on the side of the law... We want to keep ourselves professionals," he added.
