Last update - 00:00 26/09/2006
No light at the end of the tunnel
By Raja Zaatry
The Or Commission report is considered one of the most important and trenchant official documents concerning the state's attitude toward its Arab citizens that has been compiled during Israel's 58 years of existence. The report of the state commission of inquiry, headed by Justice Theodor Or, that was written in the wake of the events of October 2000 in which 12 Arab Israelis and one Palestinian were shot and killed by the security forces failed to live up to the expectations of the families and the Arab public: It made do with casting minimal blame on small cogs in the system, and also on the elected representatives of the Arab public, and placed none on the government echelon that decided that roads had to be opened even at the cost of human lives.
Nevertheless, the report does include precedent-setting statements concerning the history of discrimination against Arab citizens, as well as the deep-rooted and hostile anti-Arab sentiment among the police and security forces.
The sequence of events in the wake of the report's publication has not bred optimism: The government appointed a ministerial committee to oversee implementation of the report that was headed by then justice minister Yosef Lapid and included ministers Tzachi Hanegbi, Effi Eitam, Benny Elon and Gideon Ezra. The Lapid committee spared no effort to empty the report of content, and its main recommendations were to impose national service on young Arabs and the demolition of thousands of homes that were built without permits in Arab locales. Unlike in the case of the state commission of inquiry, the leadership of the Arab public boycotted the ministerial committee and did not accept its report.
The Police Investigation Department at the Justice Ministry was charged with completing the investigation; and in September of last year, it submitted a complementary report of its own. However, the work that the department had done carelessly in 2000, and from which the commission of inquiry exempted itself between 2001 and 2003, was not done in 2005 either: There is not a single indictment. In fact, the only blame cast fell on the families and their attorneys for "non-cooperation."
In the wake of Arab-Jewish public pressure, the department announced a renewed investigation, but it is difficult to expect a development that will reverse the obvious conclusion: The Police Investigation Department has consistently failed in investigating the truth when it comes to police aggression against Arab citizens.
Since October 2000, another 20 Arab citizens have been shot and killed by security forces. The most recent of the victims, Mahmoud Ghanaiyem, a young man in his 20s from Baka al-Gharbiyeh, was shot point blank in the head in July after being suspected of stealing a vehicle. This was also the case in many other instances, in which Arab citizens suspected of criminal activity were sentenced to death by a bullet aimed at the upper part of their bodies and sometimes their heads.
In these case too, the Police Investigation Department has failed. Most of the investigations that were opened were closed for lack of evidence or lack of interest to the public; only two indictments have been filed, only one trial has been conducted and the final result - no one has been found guilty.
Today, three years after publication of the state commission of inquiry's report, nothing has changed: No one has paid a price. The finger is still quick on the trigger not only when Arab citizens are in the crosshairs but also when it comes to Jewish and foreign activists against the occupation (as in the case of attorney Limor Goldstein, who was fatally wounded by Border Police fire in a non-violent demonstration against the separation fence at Bil'in on August 11.)
The policy of discrimination and delegitimization of more than one million citizens is only intensifying, and the prevailing government assumption remains that Arab citizens must be treated as a security or a demographic problem, while ignoring their problems in the areas of housing, education and employment. Today, six years after the events of October 2000, and three years after the report, it is still difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The writer is a journalist and editor at the Al Ittihad Arabic-language daily published in Haifa.