Finding a pattern of government ”prejudice and neglect” toward Israel’s Arab minority, a landmark Israeli commission of inquiry today accused the police of using excessive force three years ago to combat riots that it said had resulted from simmering, overlooked anger.
The commission said insensitivity by the Israeli ”establishment” permitted widespread discrimination against Israeli Arabs and the buildup of a ”combustible atmosphere,” as, it said, a politicized Islam began to radicalize the population.
The three-member commission was charged with investigating the deaths of 13 people from police fire in October 2000, when thousands of Israeli Arabs choked streets and threw stones in solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who just had just begun their uprising against Israel. A Jewish motorist was also killed, by a stone-thrower.
Criticizing police tactics that included the use of sniper fire to disperse crowds, the report concluded that Israel ”must educate its police that the Arab public is not the enemy, and should not be treated as such.” More than a million of Israel’s 6.6 million citizens are Arabs.
Israel identifies itself as a Jewish state, and since its founding in 1948 its Arab minority has held a vexed position in society. While many Israeli Arabs say they enjoy political freedoms and economic opportunities they might not find in Arab countries, they generally also say they feel like second-class citizens. For their part, Israel’s Jews increasingly regard Arab compatriots as a potential fifth column, after the convictions of a small number for aiding Palestinian terrorism.
The report, which recommended that at least one police commander be dismissed but did not call for severe sanctions against top political officials, seemed unlikely in itself to bridge the deepening divisions between Israel’s Arabs and Jews. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said he would convene his cabinet to consider the findings.
Relatives of those who were killed gathered here today to criticize the commission as not going far enough.
”It didn’t identify or make any attempt to identify the killers,” said Jamila Asleh, whose son, Asel, age 17, was killed during one stone-throwing protest.
Asel Asleh, who had many Jewish friends, was a leading member of Seeds of Peace, an American-based group that promotes conflict resolution between Israelis and Arabs. Mrs. Asleh, who wore a picture of her son pinned to her lapel, said the report ”shows that the future won’t be so good between Arabs and Jews.”
Walid Ghanaym, 37, whose brother Emad, 25, was killed, said: ”If the police killed 13 Jews, what would they do? That’s why we’re third class.”
The panel, the fifth such commission of inquiry into any subject in Israel’s history, questioned 377 witnesses.
While identifying a number of ”deep-seated factors” in leading to the violence, including less government financial support and law enforcement ”in the Arab sector,” the panel also zeroed in on the roles of particular officials. The committee found that Ehud Barak, then the prime minister, ”was not sufficiently aware and attentive” to developments among Arabs that ”created the possibility of widespread riots.”
The commission did not recommend that Mr. Barak be barred from running again for prime minister, should he choose to do so. But it did recommend barring Shlomo Ben-Ami, then the minister of public security, from ever holding that portfolio again.
Both Mr. Barak and Mr. Ben-Ami testified to the commission. Mr. Barak, who had ordered the inquiry, testified that the violence had taken him by surprise, saying that ”there was no concrete warning of such an eruption from any intelligence agency.” Mr. Ben-Ami, who has since left politics, also said he had no warning. He said that the police had failed Israel’s Arab citizens.
The commission issued several specific recommendations to the Israeli police, including that it halt the use of rubber-coated steel bullets for crowd control. ”It was determined that the police must take this weapon out of its inventory,” the report stated. Such bullets are also frequently used by Israeli forces against Palestinians.
The report stated that ”it should be pointed out in a completely non-ambiguous way that the use of live fire, including live fire by snipers, is not a means of dispersing large crowds by police.”
Gil Kleiman, a police spokesman, said the police had made several changes over the last three years, including investing in more nonlethal crowd control equipment like water cannons.
He said that the police were still permitted the firing of rubber-coated steel bullets, but that 17,000 of Israel’s 26,000 officers had now received special training in their proper use.
Azmi Bishara, one of 10 Arab legislators in the Parliament, praised the report for criticizing the police as treating Arabs as though they were not citizens. But, he said: ”There is a real problem, and it has its roots in the attitude of the police toward the Arab citizens of the state of Israel. It’s getting worse, it’s not getting better.”
Mr. Bishara and another Israeli Arab legislator, Abdulmalik Dehamshe, were accused of making statements before the clashes that conveyed ”support for violence as a means to reach the goals of the Arab sector.” But the panel recommended no penalties against them.
Read James Bennet’s article at The New York Times »