Avidan Kalfa, a volunteer for Israel's Traffic Police, was let go after he gave a ticket to the driver of Finance Minister Roni Bar-On - and told a reporter about it.
Kalfa first broke his story to Voice of Israel Radio, saying he was stuck in a traffic jam on the Jerusalem- Tel Aviv highway this past Thursday night when a car with flashing blue police lights passed him on the right-hand shoulder. "I followed after him," Kalfa said, "signaled him to stop, which he did. His guard got out of the car, showed me his credentials, told me that it was the Finance Minister's driver and asked me to allow him to go. I declined, went up to the driver and gave him the ticket."
The Press Finds Out
The story may or may not have ended there, but at that point, a Channel Two television correspondent entered the picture: "Moshe Nussbaum, whom I know from other things, happened to call me at that minute to ask me something unrelated, and I told him, 'I can't talk right now, I'm in the middle of giving a ticket to Roni Bar-On's driver,' and I hung up.' From then on, the story became known, and on Sunday I was informed that I was being fired for having given an account to a reporter while on the job."
Kalfa said he had not purposefully spoken to the reporter and apologized for it, but "I could see that he was not going to change his mind. It appears to have been a decision made at the top levels, possibly to try to get on the good side of the Cabinet ministers - or maybe they think that the police is so overstaffed and so efficient that they don't need volunteers... I feel that I was just doing my job, and that the police rewarded me with a knife in my stomach."
Asked whether the police were not justified in firing him for having spoken to a reporter, a person close to the case said that both the police and reporters are well aware that the police often leak stories to the press when they feel it is in their interest to do so.
Married with five children and a resident of Ramat Beit Shemesh, Kalfa volunteers twice a month on the 10PM-6AM night shift. "The problem of car accidents is something that I feel strongly about," he said, "and I decided that I wanted to do my share to help out."
Shoulders not for Driving
Speaking later with Arutz-7, Kalfa - a brother of former Gush Katif Residents Committee head Lior Kalfa - explained that by law, no one is allowed to drive on the shoulder for any reason, "except for police on their way to an accident or the like, or an ambulance under certain circumstances, or a Prime Minister under certain circumstances."
He said that in the course of his volunteer work, "I have helped out when there have been car accidents, including rescuing people from burning cars, helping out in directing traffic, and the like."
Kalfa said he understands that the police "may now be interested in heading off the media damage and bringing me back. But I am not sure that I want to return without there being an investigation into what caused the so-quick dismissal of a volunteer who gave a ticket to a high-ranking Cabinet minister's driver."