Impunity on both sides of the Green Line
JONATHAN COOK
Middle East Report Online, 23 November 2005
As Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon strode up to the podium at the UN General Assembly on September 15, 2005 to deliver a speech recognizing the Palestinians' right to statehood, government officials back in Jerusalem were preparing to draw a firm line under unfinished business from the start of the Palestinian uprising, five years earlier.
The Justice Ministry held a muted press conference three days after Sharon's speech to publish the findings of its investigation into the deaths of 13 unarmed demonstrators -- 12 Palestinian citizens of Israel and one Palestinian laborer from Gaza -- at the hands of the northern police force in the first week of October 2000. In the warm afterglow of the prime minister's New York appearance, hardly anyone noticed the publication of the Justice Ministry report on September 18.
The director of the ministry's Police Investigations Department -- better known by its Hebrew acronym, Mahash -- announced that his team had been unable to identify a single policeman responsible for any of the 13 deaths or for the injuries, some of them horrific, to hundreds of other demonstrators shot in Palestinian towns and villages across northern Israel during clashes with the security forces. The protests had been in solidarity with the suffering of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
RUBBER BULLETS
The news from Mahash was greeted with outrage from Palestinian members of the Knesset and members of the Higher Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens in Israel, many of whom began a hunger strike outside the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem. They pointed out that an earlier report, from a state-appointed commission of inquiry, noted that the police used the same lethal armory -- rubber bullets and live ammunition -- as the army in the Occupied Territories, even though the protesters in Israel were all civilians and, in most cases, had not left the confines of their own communities. The commission concluded that the police regarded Palestinian citizens "as an enemy."
In ignoring these findings, argued the Palestinian representatives, Mahash was proving that the police force enjoy the same lack of accountability as the army, which has killed thousands of Palestinians, many of them civilians, in the Occupied Territories. Police and soldiers were being allowed to kill Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line with impunity. "We understand the significance of this report and the danger it represents to us as citizens, as well as to democracy itself, and we will not let it pass quietly," said Abed Anabtawi, spokesman for the Supreme Follow-Up Committee, the Arab minority's highest political body. Palestinian MK Abd al-Malik Dehamsheh added that the report "signals to security forces that it is permissible to spill the blood of Arabs without fear of punishment or trial."
Another commentator, Nazir Majali, wondered aloud in the liberal daily Ha'aretz whether "someone is looking out for the Israel Police. After all, the police had to be rewarded for their decisive role in the successful disengagement and evacuation of the settlements." In stark contrast to the violent repression of the Palestinian citizens' demonstrations in October 2000, throughout the summer of 2005 the police had handled violent protests by Jewish right-wingers opposed to the Gaza disengagement with kid gloves.
The timing of the report's publication -- exactly a fortnight before the fifth anniversary of the 13 deaths -- also caused consternation. One lawyer close to the events explained: "My impression was that the government didn't even notice that the fifth anniversary was approaching. They were far more concerned that the report be delayed long enough not to upset Sharon's reception by world leaders at the UN."
LIMITED MANDATE
The long, tortuous path that led to the Mahash report began much earlier, in the weeks following the outbreak of the intifada, in the dying days of Ehud Barak's premiership. On November 8, 2000, Barak appointed a commission of inquiry into the 13 deaths in the vain hope that he might prevent the victory of his political rival, Ariel Sharon, in the impending general election. He needed to win back the support of the country's Palestinian minority if he was to stand any chance of beating Sharon's right-wing coalition.
Nonetheless, Barak made sure that the mandate of the three-man commission of inquiry, headed by Supreme Court judge Theodor Or, was limited to investigating events occurring after September 29, 2000, effectively excluding much of the necessary background for understanding the October protests. In particular, Or was not allowed to examine Barak's decision to authorize Sharon's incendiary visit to the site in Jerusalem