The Or Commission report

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http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/335544.html

The Or Commission of inquiry into the Oct. 2000 riots published its report Monday, criticizing then prime minister Ehud Barak but determining that his actions do not prevent him from running again for the post of prime minister.

The report was less forgiving with regard to then Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, determining that he failed in his post and cannot again serve as Minister of Public Security.

The three-man panel, set up to investigate the deaths of 13 Israeli Arabs in clashes with police that lasted several days, heaped criticism on the political leadership at the time, as well as on the police. One Jew was also killed during the rioting.

The report criticised some of the statements by two Arab Knesset members, but did not recommend sanctions against them.

Former prime minister Ehud Barak
The report concludes that Barak was not sufficiently aware of what was going on in the Arab sector, even though there was serious concern during his term in office that widespread rioting might break out in the Arab sector.

Former Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami
With regard to Ben-Ami, the panel recommended that he not serve again as Public Security Minister due to his "significant failure" in performing his job. According to the report, Ben-Ami failed to prepare the police for the wide-scale riots in the Arab sector, even though he was aware of the processes that made the events likely.

Former police chief Yehuda Wilk
The panel found that Yehuda Wilk, who was police commissioner at the time of the riots, exhibited a "fundamental failure in his role", and was responsible for "breaching" the trust the political echelon placed in him.

As a result, the report recommends that Wilk not be allowed to serve again in a senior security position. Wilk was found responsible for not having sufficiently trained and equipped the police to deal with the riots, and for not reacting effectively when they began.

MKs Azmi Bishara and Abulmalik Dehamshe
The report did not recommend sanctions against Balad MK Azmi Bishara and United Arab List MK Abdulmalik Dehamshe. The commission found, however, that they were both responsible,
shortly before the riots, for passing on a message "that supported violence as a way to achieve the objectives of the Arab sector," and that they thereby "contributed significantly to inflaming the atmosphere and making the violence more severe."

Islamic Movement leader Raad Salah
The commission does not recommend any action be taken against Sheikh Raad Salah, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement and former mayor of Umm al Fahm. However, the committee found that Salah, who was arrested earlier this year and is facing charges, not related to the riots, of channeling funds to Hamas-affiliated groups, "significantly contributed to inflaming the atmosphere and to the violent outburst" in the Arab sector.

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Jewish Week Wireless(News)

‘A Wake-Up Call To Israeli Society’ (09/05/2003)
Michele Chabin and Joshua Mitnick - Israel Correspondents
(Israel) Or Commission on Israeli-Arab riots report draws mix of hope and cynicism.

Jerusalem — In the wake of the scathing Or Commission report into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 12 Israeli Arabs and one Palestinian during the October 2000 riots with Israeli police, coexistence advocates say the document should serve as a call to action to both Israeli Jews and Arabs.

The report is “a wake-up call to Israeli society to begin dealing with the acute problems this community is facing,” said Eli Rekhess, an expert on Israeli Arabs at Tel Aviv University who also serves as a consultant to the Abraham Fund, a New York-based organization that promotes Jewish-Arab coexistence in Israel.

“It is also a wake-up call to the Arab sector that ongoing radicalization has a price,” he said, adding that parts of the report, “have harsh words toward the Arab leadership for calling for violence.”

For things to improve, Rekhess said, “Israeli society, both Jews and Arabs alike, have to internalize the notion that Israel is a Jewish state with a sizeable Arab minority. This is a democratic state committed to the principles of equality.”

He warned that “continuous neglect, alienation and disregard” for the Arab minority will “undoubtedly lead to another explosion.”

While many see the report as a landmark of a new era of Jewish-Arab relations, both sides say the document didn’t go far enough.

The rioting erupted on Oct. 1, just as the Palestinian intifada in the West Bank and Gaza Strip was being launched. In contrast to demonstrations where Jews have been present, the police used live ammunition to quell the Arab demonstrators with predictably deadly results. Even before they had buried their dead, the Israeli Arab community — which is one-sixth of the Israeli population of 6.6 million — demanded that the government launch an investigation and that those responsible be named and put on trial for murder.

But the police urged the commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Theodor Mor, to exonerate their forces and to instead indict Arab Knesset members for inciting their community to violence.

In the end, neither side was satisfied.

The scathing 781-page report, which has garnered a huge amount of attention both in Israel and abroad, blames both Jews and Arabs for the tragedy, and warns Israelis that their country’s treatment of the Arab minority constitutes “the most important and sensitive domestic matter on the state’s agenda.”

The report blasts “the establishment” for not showing “sufficient sensitivity to the needs of the Arab population” with regard to the equal allocation of “state resources.” It charges that the state did not do all it could “to uproot discriminatory or unjust phenomena.”

It notes that employment and educational opportunities for Israeli Arabs are far fewer than they are for Jewish Israelis, and that Arab communities, services and institutions generally receive far less funding than their Jewish counterparts.

It also states that the police used undue force against the Arab demonstrators, a consequence of the department’s view of Israeli Arabs as “an enemy” rather than as citizens.

But the commission also blames Israeli Arab religious and political leaders for promoting the “ideological and political radicalization of the Arab community,” and for allowing initially peaceful demonstrations to deteriorate into violent clashes. In Israel, the commission’s findings received the kind of news coverage usually reserved for particularly shocking terror attacks or a visit by an American president. Channel Two, a local station, pre-empted nearly a day’s worth of programming to focus on the report and its implications for the future.

“Undoubtedly it is a landmark in Jewish-Arab relations,” said Tel Aviv University’s Rekhess. “It not only criticizes the police but actually summarizes the policy, or non-policy of Israel toward the Arab minority. The picture portrayed is not a very complimentary one.”

Jafa Farah, an activist at the Mussawa Center for Arab rights agrees with that assessment but wishes the report had gone further.

Handing out flyers to journalists at a press conference following the report’s release, Farah said that those in his community were “highly disappointed” that the report did not come down more heavily on then prime minister Ehud Barak and the police.

He accused the government of covering up the facts.

“I was in the hospital when one of those killed died. We called the police and asked them to do an autopsy but they refused. The bereaved families still don’t know who killed their sons.”

Farah said that the events of October 2000 and the subsequent investigation helped mobilize his community to fight for its rights.

“We and other citizens of Israel will take our campaign to the Jews,” he said. “We will show them the facts about the discrimination against us and force them to take responsibility. We will show them that if the rights of Arab citizens can be so easily violated, then their rights can be, too.

“We will no longer accept marginalization,” he added. “We cannot live with isolation any more. In the past, the Jews initiated programs for coexistence. From now on we intend to take the initiative.”

While Ibrahim Bushnak, the director of the International Society for Cultural Exchange, also expressed disappointment that the report did not specifically name the shooters, he expressed the belief that co-existence is the only way.

Bushnak, whose 24-year-old nephew, Ramez Bushnak, was one of those killed on October 1, 2000, said that his community must make its voice heard.

To realize that goal, Bushnak’s organization is trying to establish a community center in the north where Jews and Arabs “will learn how to talk about anti-violence and co-existence.”

Bushnak, who was an adviser to the prime minister’s office at the time of the riots, also called on the government to appoint Arabs to jobs in the various ministries.

But other Israeli Arabs are less hopeful that the report would improve Arab-Jewish relations. As the Or commission report was released Monday, there was no palpable sense of anticipation of improved relations in the northern town of Umm al-Fahm, where the riots started.

“The Or committee is a joke,” said Jamal Mahadjneh, who watched the riots from a nearby restaurant three years ago. “There is no law for Arabs.”

“I saw the snipers,” he added. “A democratic state doesn’t shoot down protestors,

In the three years since the riots, the mutual fear and suspicion between Jews and Arabs have only worsened, said residents of Umm al-Fahm. While Arab citizens of Israel have been accused of aiding Palestinian terrorism, security forces have killed a handful of Arab Israelis confused for terrorists.

That the riots started in this town of 40,000, the second largest Arab town in Israel, was no surprise. More than any other Arab town in Israel, Umm al-Fahm represents a stronghold of anti-Zionist sentiment. Residents say the roots of the trepidation stretch least as far back as the Israeli War of Independence when the Israeli army refrained from conquering the village.

Today, the town is infamous among Israeli Jews for being a hotbed of Islamic Arab nationalism. The Islamic Movement has controlled its municipal government since 1989 and its mayor was jailed this year on charges of funneling money to Hamas.

“In the last three years discrimination has risen,” said Nabil Hilme, a restaurant owner, who said he hoped that the report would stir a public debate on Jewish-Arab relations. “Israeli Arabs are far from being equal citizens. They’re being demonized.”

Residents of Umm al-Fahm say they’re afraid to frequent shopping malls in a major Israeli city or visit the beach out of concern that they’ll be profiled as potential terrorists. Hailing from Umm al-Fahm is another black mark.

“I sit on the bus and people sitting next to me flee,” said Mohammed Mahmeed, education worker at the city municipality.

When asked whether Arab political leaders were guilty of inciting the violence of three years ago, Mahmeed dismissed the allegation as a figment of the media.

During the 2000 peace talks, some Jewish politicians suggested a swap with the Palestinian Authority: Umm al-Fahm for an Israeli settlement. The locals met the idea with staunch opposition. Despite all of the discrimination, residents here believe they’ve contributed to Israel and that the country owes them by not putting them on the trading block.

“From our experience, we know that the whole report will be squandered,” said Mustafa Mahmeed, acting mayor of Umm el-Fahm. “They are ignoring the Arab sector and worsening the policy of discrimination. That policy will bring about new confrontations.” n

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