Israel’s Parliament administered today a rebuke to Israel police officials for the behavior of police in dispersing crowds who gathered at the Ohel Theater in Tel Aviv on February 4 when the Mapai Central Committee met to vote the ouster of Pinhas Lavon as secretary-general of the Histadrut, Israel’s Labor Federation.
The rebuke consisted of submitting the issue to a House committee after representatives of the General Zionists, the Mapam and the Herut submitted motions on the police action. The motions asserted that when students demonstrated against the Lavon ouster, police plainclothesmen joined Mapai party ushers to disperse the crowd. The motions also contained a charge that the plainclothesmen wielded hidden batons against the noisier demonstrators.
The deputies asserted that the public must always be able to identify policemen and that when auxiliary police of party ushers exercise authority outside of the premises, they should wear clearly visible armbands or badges “in order to avoid hooliganism.”
Police Minister Behor Shitreet admitted that six or seven plainclothesmen were among the uniformed police who used batons and he agreed that all persons purporting to establish order should be identifiable by the public. The Knesset passed the motions to committee for consideration without objections.
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