TEL AVIV // For many in Israel's Arab minority, the killing of 13 Arab protesters by Israeli police a decade ago remains an open wound.
And a report to be made public soon by the Israel Democracy Institute could slow the healing even more. The document - whose writers include prominent lawyers who were granted rare access to all the material from the investigations into the shootings, some of it confidential - states that the police probes into the killings were mishandled and calls on the attorney general to reopen the investigations.
According to a summary of the report, which was posted on the institute's website, the lawyers claim that law enforcers rushed to shut all the investigations even though evidence existed to produce indictments against police officers in at least two cases.
The institute, a think tank based in Jerusalem, also said in the summary that the prosecution ignored witness accounts that might have incriminated policemen and relied on weak testimonies that backed up its decisions to dismiss the cases.
"In light of these findings, it's hard not to raise the question of whether the [law enforcers] would have acted similarly had 13 Jews been killed," it said.
The institute contradicted the findings in 2008 of Israel's then attorney general, who announced there was "insufficient evidence" to indict any of the suspects. A spokesman for the ministry of justice declined to comment on the summary.
For eight days in October 2000, Israeli police used live ammunition to disperse protesters in many Arab towns and villages in northern Israel. They were demonstrating in support of the second Palestinian intifada that had started just days earlier in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Although the protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails at police and passersby, none was found to have used guns. Thirteen male demonstrators were killed by police, and hundreds of others were injured.
Many saw the riots as not just an expression of Israeli Arabs' solidarity with Palestinians, but also as a protest against the inequality and discrimination experienced by Israel's Arab minority as compared with the Jewish majority. A decade later, many Arab citizens say little has changed. Indeed, even the institute's report was titled: "The writing is still on the wall". The report said: "After the October events … the Arab population felt that the state was treating it like an enemy."
In a sign of growing discontent, thousands of Israeli Arabs flocked to the northern Israeli town of Kafar Kanna, one of the sites in which the protests had taken place, on Friday to mark the anniversary of the riots, which have become known in Israel as "the October events".
They waved Palestinian flags, poster-sized photos of the riot victims and signs reading, "We shall not forget, we shall not forgive", and "With blood and fire we'll redeem our martyrs".
Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab legislator, said the institute's report bolsters the claim made by many Israeli Arabs that state prosecutors had tried to protect the policemen by curtailing the probes into the killings.
"We have always said that something stinks with the prosecution's decision," Mr Tibi said in an interview. "The state killed the Arabs and then covered up for the suspects. The message conveyed here was that the value of life is not equal in the prosecution's eyes when it comes to Jews and Arabs."
The Or Commission, an inquiry into the killings that was appointed by the government in 2003, lambasted the police for being unprepared for the riots and using excessive force to disperse the protesters. Its recommendations included guiding police to view Arabs as citizens whose rights are equal to those of Jews and directing police officers to use live fire or rubber bullets only when their lives are in danger.
Experts say law enforcement authorities have mostly ignored the recommendations. The institute's report said that in at least two cases, there was sufficient evidence to lead to indictments against police officers. Those cases included the killing of Rami Ghara, a 21-year-old who died on October 1, 2000, while standing at a petrol station after a rubber-coated steel bullet hit him in the eye.
The Or Commission's findings claimed that there was only one police officer in the area who had carried a weapon with such bullets, and that the officer had admitted firing in the direction of the petrol station even though he said his life was not under threat.
Lina Saba, a lawyer who helped write the institute's report, said in an interview with Israeli television that Ghara's case was prematurely closed. "There was an eyewitness who saw the suspect shooting and the deceased falling," she said. The prosecution tended to ignore the accounts of witnesses from Ghara's village except for one villager whose testimony supported their decision to dismiss the allegations.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
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Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The Pope's itinerary
Sunday, February 3, 2019 - Rome to Abu Dhabi
1pm: departure by plane from Rome / Fiumicino to Abu Dhabi
10pm: arrival at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
Monday, February 4
12pm: welcome ceremony at the main entrance of the Presidential Palace
12.20pm: visit Abu Dhabi Crown Prince at Presidential Palace
5pm: private meeting with Muslim Council of Elders at Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
6.10pm: Inter-religious in the Founder's Memorial
Tuesday, February 5 - Abu Dhabi to Rome
9.15am: private visit to undisclosed cathedral
10.30am: public mass at Zayed Sports City – with a homily by Pope Francis
12.40pm: farewell at Abu Dhabi Presidential Airport
1pm: departure by plane to Rome
5pm: arrival at the Rome / Ciampino International Airport
Company%20Profile
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How to increase your savings
- Have a plan for your savings.
- Decide on your emergency fund target and once that's achieved, assign your savings to another financial goal such as saving for a house or investing for retirement.
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- Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Quick pearls of wisdom
Focus on gratitude: And do so deeply, he says. “Think of one to three things a day that you’re grateful for. It needs to be specific, too, don’t just say ‘air.’ Really think about it. If you’re grateful for, say, what your parents have done for you, that will motivate you to do more for the world.”
Know how to fight: Shetty married his wife, Radhi, three years ago (he met her in a meditation class before he went off and became a monk). He says they’ve had to learn to respect each other’s “fighting styles” – he’s a talk it-out-immediately person, while she needs space to think. “When you’re having an argument, remember, it’s not you against each other. It’s both of you against the problem. When you win, they lose. If you’re on a team you have to win together.”
Celta Vigo 2
Castro (45'), Aspas (82')
Barcelona 2
Dembele (36'), Alcacer (64')
Red card: Sergi Roberto (Barcelona)
The BIO:
He became the first Emirati to climb Mount Everest in 2011, from the south section in Nepal
He ascended Mount Everest the next year from the more treacherous north Tibetan side
By 2015, he had completed the Explorers Grand Slam
Last year, he conquered K2, the world’s second-highest mountain located on the Pakistan-Chinese border
He carries dried camel meat, dried dates and a wheat mixture for the final summit push
His new goal is to climb 14 peaks that are more than 8,000 metres above sea level
A list of the animal rescue organisations in the UAE
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Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
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Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
