The Report of the Or Commission, the special government body appointed to investigate the killing by Israeli police of 13 Israeli Palestinian protesters in October 2000, will not change the relationship between the State of Israel and its Palestinian minority.
The commission concluded that the police had wrongfully fired at the protesters and recommended measures be taken against those policemen involved. Furthermore, the report highlighted the state's continued exclusionary policy toward its Palestinian citizens and their leadership. However, so many, more violent actions have transpired since October 2000 that the report is unlikely to have much impact on either the Israeli or the Palestinian public.
A few days before the commission submitted its report, the Israeli cabinet instituted a new policy to integrate Palestinians into Israeli society. This policy could have been a landmark in Israeli-Palestinian relations had it not been for the policy’s vague terminology and lack of benchmarks. The policy resembles the first Rabin Cabinet’s resolution after the Land Day protest of 1976 – from which nothing was implemented nor did anything materialize.
The riots of October 2000 in the Israeli Arab sector, which erupted in the wake of the violent Al-Aqsa Mosque clashes following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount compound, underscore the extent of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Discriminated against and excluded from important public spheres, the one million Israeli-Arab citizens stress their Palestinian identity, express solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, and view terrorist actions against Israel as legitimate “resistance.”
Since the Al-Aqsa Intifada there have been a growing number of Israeli Arabs involved in terrorist actions toward the Israelis (68 between January and October 2002 compared to 2 in 1999 according to Haaretz on June 11, 2002). Threatened by demographics that favor the Arab citizens and by their political and intellectual elites who opt for changing Israel into a bi-national state, it should come as no surprise that many Israeli Jews view their Palestinian counterparts as “the enemy.” Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak contributed to this perception and even inflamed it when, after the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace talks, he further dampened an atmosphere of desperation by saying, “There is no partner for peace among the Palestinians.” During his three years, he neglected the Palestinian leadership and humiliated them – despite the fact that he received 97% of the Israeli-Arab vote.
Many scholars and analysts dwell only on the Israeli government’s policy of exclusion as the most important explanation for current mutual alienation, but the affect of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict on internal relations is an additional, important factor. Today, this internal conflict may also be hampering the ability to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinian leaders are attempting to redefine Israel from a “Jewish and democratic state” to a “state of its citizens” or even a bi-national state. They are also aiming to repatriate Palestinian refugees to their original villages and homes, which diminishes the Israeli public’s readiness for compromise with the Palestinians.
Disclaimer: Assertions and opinions in this Commentary are solely those of the above-mentioned author(s) and do not reflect necessarily the views of the Middle East Institute, which expressly does not take positions on Middle East policy.
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The Report of the Or Commission, the special government body appointed to investigate the killing by Israeli police of 13 Israeli Palestinian protesters in October 2000, will not change the relationship between the State of Israel and its Palestinian minority.
The commission concluded that the police had wrongfully fired at the protesters and recommended measures be taken against those policemen involved. Furthermore, the report highlighted the state's continued exclusionary policy toward its Palestinian citizens and their leadership. However, so many, more violent actions have transpired since October 2000 that the report is unlikely to have much impact on either the Israeli or the Palestinian public.
A few days before the commission submitted its report, the Israeli cabinet instituted a new policy to integrate Palestinians into Israeli society. This policy could have been a landmark in Israeli-Palestinian relations had it not been for the policy’s vague terminology and lack of benchmarks. The policy resembles the first Rabin Cabinet’s resolution after the Land Day protest of 1976 – from which nothing was implemented nor did anything materialize.
The riots of October 2000 in the Israeli Arab sector, which erupted in the wake of the violent Al-Aqsa Mosque clashes following Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount compound, underscore the extent of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Discriminated against and excluded from important public spheres, the one million Israeli-Arab citizens stress their Palestinian identity, express solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, and view terrorist actions against Israel as legitimate “resistance.”
Since the Al-Aqsa Intifada there have been a growing number of Israeli Arabs involved in terrorist actions toward the Israelis (68 between January and October 2002 compared to 2 in 1999 according to Haaretz on June 11, 2002). Threatened by demographics that favor the Arab citizens and by their political and intellectual elites who opt for changing Israel into a bi-national state, it should come as no surprise that many Israeli Jews view their Palestinian counterparts as “the enemy.” Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak contributed to this perception and even inflamed it when, after the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian Peace talks, he further dampened an atmosphere of desperation by saying, “There is no partner for peace among the Palestinians.” During his three years, he neglected the Palestinian leadership and humiliated them – despite the fact that he received 97% of the Israeli-Arab vote.
Many scholars and analysts dwell only on the Israeli government’s policy of exclusion as the most important explanation for current mutual alienation, but the affect of the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict on internal relations is an additional, important factor. Today, this internal conflict may also be hampering the ability to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Palestinian leaders are attempting to redefine Israel from a “Jewish and democratic state” to a “state of its citizens” or even a bi-national state. They are also aiming to repatriate Palestinian refugees to their original villages and homes, which diminishes the Israeli public’s readiness for compromise with the Palestinians.