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TITLE: Reliving Bloody October: Israel Begins a Devastating Self-Examination |
AUTHOR: Joshua Hammer |
PUB: Newsweek |
DATE: March 5, 2001 |
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Inside the crowded hearing room at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, emotions were stretched taut. As an inquiry began last Monday into the shooting deaths of 13 Arab Israelis in October, policeman Alexander Shvatzinsky was testifying about his role in quelling riots in the village of Jatt in northern Israel. Suddenly, the sister of an Arab killed there, 21-year-old Rami Ghara, jumped from her first-row seat. "LIAR!" she screamed, hurling a pair of headphones at the policeman's head. Minutes later Druze policeman Morshad Rashad stepped into the witness box. "Criminal, criminal," Ghara's mother shrieked, "God should take you, you murdered my son." Her husband, sitting a few feet from the witness stand, then leapt on the cop and pummeled him in the back. As family members joined the assault, the shaken presiding judge, Theodor Orr, ordered the courtroom cleared. In four days of hearings, Israeli police admitted for the first time that they used live ammunition against rock-throwing demonstrators. And that was only the first day of testimony. Last week's melee set the tone for what could be one of Israel's most devastating self-examinations in years. In the coming weeks, the Orr Commission intends to shine a light on the tactics employed by Israeli police in squelching protests by Arab citizens across northern Israel after Ariel Sharon's incendiary visit to the Temple Mount on Sept. 28. In addition to the 13 people killed, more than 800 were injured, placing the clashes among the worst episodes of government-sponsored violence committed against Arab Israelis since independence. Israeli's media have covered the hearings closely, and interest among the country's Jewish population, while slack at first, appears to be growing. The testimony has not flattered the authorities. In four days of hearings, Israeli police admitted for the first time that they used live ammunition against rock-throwing demonstrators. They also revealed that they'd been equipped with neither tear gas nor water cannons, and that they had a muddled understanding of the rules of engagement. "The government treated the protesters as if they were enemies," said Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of the Knesset who observed the proceedings. The hearings did not come easily. Prime Minister Ehud Barak initially praised the performance of the police in northern Israel and resisted calls for an official inquiry. But growing pressure from Arab leaders, human-rights groups and liberal members of the Knesset finally forced him to relent. Last November a three-member panel was appointed, including Supreme Court Justice Orr, one of Israel's most respected jurists, plus a Palestinian judge from Nazareth and a Middle East expert from Tel Aviv. The commission began gathering evidence from eyewitnesses and issued subpoenas to rank-and-file cops and their commanders. Some policemen were given the right to appear incognito. Under Israeli law, testimony before a commission of inquiry can't be used in criminal court, and legal experts say few, if any, of the police are likely to face jail time. But that doesn't mean there won't be fallout. The officers' accounts pointed to a disturbing lack of restraint. Patrolmen who shot demonstrators in Jatt first swore they'd used rubber bullets "for deterrence." But two cops testified that Rashad had fired at Rami Ghara from 15 meters away; rubber bullets are usually lethal at that range. (Rashad insisted he'd been 80 meters from his target.) And Thursday, four members of an anti-terror squad admitted firing live ammunition at protesters in Umm el-Fahm, where one man died and seven were hit in the legs. Hidden behind a screen and guarded by a dozen security men, the policemen, identified only by letters of the Hebrew alphabet, said they had orders to fire only if they believed officers' lives were in danger. But several said that Northern District commander Alik Ron had given the order to shoot after a cop was knocked down by a rock hurled from a slingshot. And though police were supposed to aim below the knees, one sniper admitted that the distance between them and the protesters, usually 140 meters, made it difficult to fire accurately. Family members of the victims say the hearings haven't assuaged their grief and anger. For the parents of Ahmed Siam, shot in the head by a sniper's bullet in Umm el-Fahm four days after his 18th birthday, the likelihood that the cops will get off scot-free is just one frustration. The Siams made the trip to Jerusalem expecting to look their son's killer in the eye. Instead they seethed as the sniper testified behind the screen. "It is my right to know who killed my son," his father, Ibrahim, said, clutching a photo of the dead teenager. Commission members explained the added precautions were necessary to protect the policemen from harm. Too bad, Ibrahim says, that his son never enjoyed such consideration. END |