OCCUPIED
JERUSALEM, August 20 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Former Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak denied Tuesday, August 20, giving an order
which led to the deaths of 13 Israeli Arabs in October 2000, shortly
after the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada, in testimony to a
governmental commission of enquiry, news agencies reported.
The
panel, headed by high court judge Theodore Or, accused Barak of not
anticipating the reaction of Israel's one-million strong Arab community
at the time, and of taking inappropriate measures when the unrest
erupted, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
13 Arabs were killed by Israeli forces during demonstrations of
solidarity with the Palestinians that exploded into violent clashes in
the north of the country.
Speaking
to the commission, Barak denied he ordered police to open a number of
roads, blocked by rioters, "by any means," despite the risk to
human life.
"I
reject this totally. To my knowledge, it has no basis in reality. I
didn't give any instruction to open the roads ... by any means,"
Barak said, quoted by Israel army radio.
He
also denied knowing the police were using snipers during the riots.
"There
was no guidance. The Prime Minister does not deal with the question of
what means the police use to deal with these situations ... whether they
use truncheons or gas or whatever," he said.
The
former Prime Minister also rejected the panel's accusations he had not
anticipated the protests, saying he expected disturbances but not on the
violent scale of those seen in October 2000.
"Riots
that we have seen before on Land Day, I definitely expected," he
said, referring to the annual protests marking the 1976 killing of six
Israeli Arabs by Israeli troops during protests over confiscation of
Arab lands.
However,
Barak said he had not expected "the broad riots that we saw ...
with a level of intensity, violence and nationalist energy.
"There
was no intelligence assessment or concrete information that pointed to a
broad sort of riot," he said.
Barak
placed the blame for the outbreak of rioting squarely on "Arab
separatist groups with a nationalist political agenda," the radio
said.
Among
others, Barak explicitly blamed the National Democratic Alliance, headed
by MK Azmi Bishara, the Bnei Kfar movement, and the Islamic Movement,
according to Israeli daily, Ha’aretz.
In
response to charges he was ignorant of the situation in Arab society,
Barak said he was aware of "deep gaps between Jews and Arabs in the
Israeli society."
As
a result, he said he had been in the process of drawing up a program to
ease inequalities in the Arab sector when the riots occurred.
He
said, however, that the report about the Arab society being "on the
verge of blowing up" was not unique to the Arab sector, and that
there were similar warnings in regard to relations between religious and
secular, and between the rich and the poor, Ha’aretz reported.
He
will continue testifying Wednesday, August 21, and his testimony will
end the commission's public hearings.
Barak
was the most senior of a number of Israeli officials to have received a
warning letter from the Or commission, a body created after the
bloodshed under pressure from the Israeli Arab community and human
rights groups.
His
testimony is the last in the commission's public hearings.
Since
the commission of inquiry was created in February 2001, its members have
met 91 times, and heard 436 testimonies which amount to 16,000 pages of
documentation, the radio said
