Today's lesson in Israel: The government is lying. And we know why.

If police violence was the first visible reflection of Israel's turn into a police state, the completely fabricated State justifications are the next.

While dozens of anti-government protesters who were injured by the police are still recovering, some still hospitalized with head injuries and more, the Israeli media reported that there were “injuries among both protesters and police”, describing these incidences as “clashes” as if protesters attacked the police.

This is not entirely new. For months, accounts of protesters being attacked by police and mounted police — and then blamed for it, with police retroactively making up stories that protesters were attacking the horses — have been in the news. (Animal rights activists have been horrified by the use of horses to attack humans.) But this tactic has escalated this past week, and taken on a new twist. As I have shared in the past and wrote last week, the protests are non-violent. And while photos, videos, and accounts of police violence are flooding social media, somehow there are no such actual testimonies of police being attacked. We have seen mounted police marching over protesters standing still, punching protesters who are standing quietly on the side holding flags, attacking a kid sitting on a stoop. Although that is what we see and hear, the media still headlined the official police story using the “clashes” langauge suggesting that protesters deserved being attacked by police because police officers were attacked by protesters.

Turns out the police completely made this up. On purpose.

Another image of Ifat Benjamin’s son who was violently attacked by this police officer, Yair Hanona of Tel Aviv. This angle shows the officer choking the boy from behind using all hiss fore while the boy is screaming out in pain. And again, the officer seems to be smiling. ,

The night of the mass protests following the crucial Knesset vote in which dozens of protesters were attacked, four police officers walked into a hospital to officially make a claim that they were injured. All four were looked at by doctors, who did not find any evidence of any injuries, and they were sent home. One claimed he was punched, but did not have a single bruise on him. Another claimed he broke his pinky, but did not. They were 100% lying on behalf of the police and the government in order to enable the media report this as “clashes” and that protesters attacked the police.

It is worth pointing out that the Israeli police have a history of violence against protesters. This Knesset report from way back in 2011 includes jarring testimonies, especially from haredi protesters. And of course, violence against Palestinian protesters, followed by illegal detentions, has been carried out for decades — though by the IDF as well as by the police, which raises its own set of questions about underlying cultures that allow, enable, and even promote this kind of institutionalized violence.

Meanwhile, as Ben Gvir gave interviews describing how happy he was with police performance, Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer went on CNN to defend the government by making the head-twisting comment, “The protests are part of democracy. They are a sign that the system is working.” Oh, really? Police violence against protesters intentionally quashing the protests with water cannons, horses running over protesters, throwing protesters over walls, and punching kids while threatening to rape their mothers — this is what democracy looks like? I don’t think so so. Democracy is when protesters are allowed to protest. Not this. The outrageousness of the police using violence to silence protest while its ministers spin the situation as fantastic is next-level Orwellian.

And in other developments over the past two days:

• Loyalty and corruption in Bibi’s trial. The judge who is leading Bibi’s corruption trial, Justice Rivka Friedman-Feldman, has been removed (by giving her a promotion. Who can argue, right?) and replaced with the Justice Nava Braverman, wife of Bibi’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman. Loyalty pays off…

• Firing the Attorney General. Bibi has been trying to fire AG Galil Baharav-Miara for months. She remains one of the few people in the government who still has independent powers and cannot be fired by the Prime Minister. (Which is why Bibi hates her). But yesterday, a bill was introduced to significantly reduce her powers. Some in the government have disavowed this bill, but as the government is now regularly giving mixed messages in order to weaken the opposition and protesters, we should not trust anyone trying to minimize damage or reconstruct narratives.

• Lock up the pilots!. Likud Transport Minister Miri Regev said that the 1000 pilots who refuse to serve in protest belong in jail. In fact, as tens of thousands of reservists are refusing to serve, language of “traitors” is back in the Israeli lexicon. Just a reminder that the last time Israel’s right wing became this obsessed with pointing fingers at traitors, a prime minister ended up dead.

  

  Miri Regev (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

So now we are seeing exactly how a country turns into a dictatorial police state:

1. Enact laws that remove checks and balances

2. Fire people who are potential threats, or weaken their roles

3. Appoint loyalists everywhere

4. Violently quash protests

5. Threaten opponents with prison

6. Lie to the media, blaming the victims, justifying police violence and everything else

7. Go on an international media campaign to twist the whole story.

It’s happening. We are here.

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