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The former commissioner of the Israeli police launched a blistering attack on National Security Minister Itamar-Ben Gvir during a radio interview, saying that the lawmaker is not human and was “born to do evil.”
Moshe Karadi, who served as the general commissioner of the police from 2004 to 2007, told Radio 103FM that Ben-Gvir’s ministerial appointment has created serious challenges for the force.
“There are officers and commanders in the police who focus on the war on terrorism, and those who fight the war on crime. [Police Chief Kobi Shabtai] fought terrorism. A criminal came into his office and Kobi does not know how to fight a criminal,” Karadi said.
“[Ben-Gvir] is a criminal in his very essence; he does things that don’t even have a drop of humanity. He isn’t a human being, he came into the world in order to do evil.”
Karadi said that police officials had to swiftly remove officers accused of using excessive force against anti-reform protesters.
“The commanders need to understand that these officers, even if they are few, are causing damage to the thousands of police officers dedicated to their work,” he said.
“They should be removed from the force as soon as possible,” Karadi continued, without acknowledging that around a dozen police officers were wounded by protesters during demonstrations on Tuesday.
“I am very worried that we are heading for bloodshed,” he added.
Notably, Karadi was police commissioner during the 2005 disengagement, a period marked by intense protests as Jewish communities were expelled from the Gaza Strip. During Karadi’s tenure, protesters who attempted to block highways were violently removed from roadways by police, with some held in pretrial detention for months.
According to Hebrew-language media reports at the time, Karadi ordered officers to create roadblocks to prevent buses transporting protesters against the withdrawal from reaching a mass rally.
Officers then reportedly threatened bus drivers that their drivers licenses would be revoked should they ignore orders and continue taking protesters to the demonstration.
Civil rights organizations in Israel later condemned Karadi for his role in suppressing the protests, arguing that the police had overstepped their authority by infringing on protesters’ freedom of speech and movement.
