Fri, Aug. 29, 2003

JERUSALEM -- Some high-level Israelis are holding their breath these days in anticipation. Next week the Orr Commission of Inquiry, which has probed police conduct during the Israeli-Arab riots in October 2000, will announce its findings. Then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-Minister of Police Shlomo Ben Ami as well as top police officers might find themselves in a tight spot if the commission finds them responsible for the tragic events resulting in the deaths of 13 Israeli Arab citizens.

Here's a reminder: The riots erupted just after the Palestinians had launched their Al-Aqsa intifada, when the Israeli Arabs marched in solidarity with their fellow Arabs from Gaza and the West Bank. To many Israeli Jews, however, this was perceived not just as a civic or political protest, accepted in all democracies, but as a separatist move, threatening to join with the enemies of Israel in the scheme to destroy the Jewish state. Therefore, many felt that the police were right in responding to the riots with an iron fist.

The truth is, the riots were far from anemic. The Israeli Arabs burned down banks and buses, attacked innocent passengers (the 14th victim was a Jewish driver killed by a rock thrown from an Arab village) and closed vital highways. Surely a democracy has the right to restore law and order by using force, but must it mean leaving 13 of its citizens lying dead?

This issue is somewhat sensitive to me. My brother is a police officer. While it's always good to have one in the family, when a discussion on police behavior vis-a-vis the Israeli Arabs arises, our arguments tend to become too animated.

I argue that when it comes to Arabs, the police are too trigger-happy, yet when Jews riot, nobody is killed. (This is common in America, where the probably well-founded complaint is that minorities are more likely to suffer from police brutality.) My brother answers -- with more than a grain of truth, I guess -- that if instead of theorizing at my desk I would join him in the field, facing the life-threatening rioters, I would change my mind. Usually at this point, our wives urge us to change the subject.

NOT A FAIR DEAL

Yet, in this highly controversial issue, there is something else beyond law and order. The Israeli Arabs who took to the streets were indeed triggered by their sympathy for their Palestinian kin. However, deep below there were more fundamental motives: For too many years, these tax-paying and law-abiding Israeli citizens were not getting a fair deal, compared to their Jewish neighbors. Unemployment in Israel is the highest in Arab towns and villages; there is no master plan for development in the Arab sector, which results in lack of housing and leads to illegal building. Education and physical infrastructure are way below the standards of those in Jewish towns. The Israeli Arabs in October 2000, then, were voicing their other grievances as well.

Israel as a Jewish democracy is not easy to comprehend. It is the homeland of the Jewish people, but under that umbrella, all the citizens of the state -- Jews and Arabs alike -- should be equal. Therefore, when the Orr Commission's findings are released next week, they should not be used to deepen the rift between Arabs and Jews in Israel but rather as an alarm, leading to the opening of a new chapter in the relations between the two communities.

Come to think of it, if we had been smart, we would have made the Israeli Arabs our most privileged citizens in the first place. They could have served as a message and reminder to other Arabs: See how it is when you live in peace with the Jews.

Uri Dromi is director of international outreach at the Israel Democracy Institute in Jerusalem.

© 2003 The Miami Herald and wire service sources.