On the evening of January 6, tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men gathered in Jerusalem’s Romema neighborhood for a massive demonstration to protest the military draft.

Standing under a giant banner declaring that it was “better to die than to transgress,” speaker after speaker assailed the state and the army, likening efforts to boost Haredi enlistment to the atrocities of the Holocaust, and pledged that “under no circumstances will yeshiva students be conscripted.”

Outside of the main protest area, large groups of Haredi teenagers and boys wandered the pamphlet-littered streets, setting fires for several blocks along a stretch of Yirmiyahu Street, the neighborhood’s main drag.

At the busy intersection with Shamgar Street, another major road, they blocked traffic in one direction with a flaming dumpster and in the other with their own bodies.

Noticeably absent from the chaos, which was observed firsthand by this Times of Israel reporter, was the presence of any police. Only much later, as medics tried desperately to save the life of a teenage boy who had been dragged for blocks under a bus that ran through the intersection, did security forces show up, many of them in riot gear.

Large protests such as the one in which 14-year-old Yosef Eisenthal was killed have become commonplace in the ultra-Orthodox community, with extremists and their supporters regularly blocking roads or even carrying out violent attacks as they demonstrate against army conscription or other instances of what they see as unwarranted state meddling in the community.

But despite the disturbances to public order that can put lives at risk, the police response to such behavior has been inconsistent. They have been accused by observers of taking a hands-off approach, sometimes deploying at minimal levels or staying away altogether, in stark contrast to their heavy presence at anti-government protests or other demonstrations by non-Haredi communities.

When police do eventually get involved, it’s often with excessive force, observers say.

“This is not acceptable in terms of the level of policing that residents of Jerusalem deserve. There’s nothing that justifies this mayhem in Jerusalem’s capital,” said Yael Litmanovitz, an expert on policing at the Israel Democracy Institute.

According to reports and video footage from the January 6 protest, the Kavim-operated city bus that eventually hit and killed Eisenthal had stopped short of the blocked intersection when it was surrounded by a mob of young Haredi men who pounded on the side of the vehicle and threw objects at it.

Driver Fakhri Khatib, who is under house arrest and faces charges of negligent homicide, said he called the emergency police hotline to request help before driving through the crowd.

Graphic video from the scene showed the bus driving through the intersection with a person being dragged underneath the vehicle as bystanders screamed.

An eyewitness, standing across the street from a melting plastic waste bin, told The Times of Israel that those hit by the bus had been blocking its progress.

It took several minutes before this reporter saw police officers who had been stationed several blocks away show up and begin attempting to control the crowd.

The Israel Police later said its forces were “working to disperse” the protesters, who it said had “thrown objects and eggs at police officers, set fire to bins, blocked vehicles and attacked journalists.”

“The Israel Police stresses that violent rioting, blocking traffic arteries and attacking vehicles cross a red line, endanger lives and could end in great tragedy,” the police said in a statement, which did not explain why police forces had allowed things to escalate as they did.

Mahdi Atoun, who heads the Kavim labor union, noted that the incident came amid a string of attacks on Arab bus drivers in........

© The Times of Israel