OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 3 September 2003 — It took the Israeli judicial committee three years to investigate eight days of bloody unrest among the Arab population of northern Israel in October 2000. But the 800-page report published by the committee, headed by Chief Justice Theodore Or, spotlighted a precarious reality lasting more than half a century — that of Arab-Jewish relations in Israel.
Heated debate about the report and its implications dominated the Israeli media yesterday, with all newspapers allocating most of their pages to the issue. One commentator in the biggest-selling Yediot Ahronot daily even called the events of October 2000, which Arab-Israeli politicians have since described as “Black October” — a “wake-up call”.
Days after the Palestinian Intifada (uprising) erupted on Sept. 28, 2000, unrest spread to the Arab-populated areas in northern Israel. Police forcefully put an end to the riots, using sniper fire and rubber-coated metal bullets, methods it does not use to disperse Jewish demonstrators. The result was 13 dead.
The Or report sharply criticized the police, saying it harbored a “culture of lies” and viewed Arab-Israelis as “enemy elements” rather than as regular citizens, a mentality which it said must be “rooted out”. It recommended then-police Commissioner Yehuda Wilk and former northern district commander, Alik Ron, who had ordered the use of snipers without informing the political echelon, be banned from filling senior posts in the realm of public security.
Then-Prime minister Ehud Barak and Public Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami could not escape their direct political responsibility, the report added. It advised Ben-Ami never again serve as public security minister, but made no recommendations against Barak. The report also issued an unequivocal statement against the use of sniper fire as a means to disperse demonstrations.
Israeli commentators described as “tragic” the fact that Ben-Ami, a moderate intellectual who paid a key role in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians, emerged as the politician most harmed by the report. They added however that the censure would be unlikely to prevent Ben-Ami from assuming posts other than public security minister, including the premiership, in the future. Barak got off lightly, said the commentators, although the report’s findings could impair his chances of being re-elected as the leader of the Israel Labour Party and of becoming premier again.
The judges saw the relations between Israel and its Arab citizens as the “most important and sensitive internal theme on the political agenda”. They spent four chapters describing the sad history of the Arabs in Israel since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, the discrimination and land expropriations they suffered, leading to increasing bitterness and radicalization. Especially today with the Palestinian intifada, the reality of Israel’s Arab citizens, who number 1.3 million (one in every five Israelis) has not become less complex. They are still torn between conflicting identification with the state of Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, from whom they are separated only by an arbitrary armistice line.
The Israeli police, according to the Or report, has yet to learn to regard the Arab Israelis as equal citizens, rather than a hostile public. This is true, at least as regards that October, for Israel’s Jewish majority on the whole as well. Panicked by the television pictures showing violence normally associated with the West Bank and Gaza Strip happening within Israel’s own boundaries, this public was quick to interpret the riots an “existential danger”, as analyst Sever Plotsker of Yediot put it, which could turn into a civil war.
In an indication of the mistrust and alienation Arab Israelis feel toward the state, many expressed disappointment with the report even before it was released Monday afternoon.
