Posted: 9/10/2001 4:55:06 PM EDT
[#1]
Police SWAT teams, the Israeli experience, from [url]http://www.isayeret.com/civi/guide.htm[/url]: Mutiny
As mentioned before, the police and the MAGAV have two responsibilities - classic counter crime police activity and CT. In 1994 when Hefet'z, the founder of the unit was appointed as the new police commissioner, he focused most of his attention on the CT part.
While the CT activity, in Hefet'z time as the police commissioner, was very effective, the crime level reached new picks, especially with the massive immigration from the former Soviet Union bringing organized and sophisticated crime to Israel.
In 1998, after Hefet’z retirement from the IP, a new police commissioner was appointed - Yehouda Vileck. Unlike Hefet'z, Vileck didn't have any SF background. He served as a regular police officer and came up in the ranks the old fashion way.
When he was appointed, Vileck decided to focus the police attention on classic police work. As far as the two elite civilian units YAMAM and Gideonim it meant that the units will no longer be pure CT units, but will emerge into more SWAT type units, performing special police missions.
In order to insure that the units will follow his intention Vileck decided to appoints new CO to both units that will be obligated to him rather then to the unit. Of course, the units didn't take it too well. Both unit Gideonim and especially Unit YAMAM always had a self image of elite military units, rather then civilian ones, especially with the very low public image on MAGAV and the IP.
The problem first started in unit Gideonim in august 1998, when the new CO, a former decorated Unit YAMAS officer, arrived and unit Gideonim began performing SWAT assignments and criminal intelligence gathering missions. The unit’s members almost immediately went on mutiny.
In the Gideonim incident, as well as in the Unit YAMAM mutiny afterwards, Vileck shown a solid back-bone behavior, giving total support to the new CO and kicking out the leaders of the mutiny.
One year later, the same repeated itself in Unit YAMAM. In April 1999 the Unit received a new CO. Since one of the main reasons the unit was ruled out In the past from many major hostage rescue operations, was the bad public relations, Vileck maid a smart decision and appointed the former Sayeret Egoz CO and once a senior Sayeret MATKAL officer to be the new CO. View Quote
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