Academic Experts to Commission: Arab Leaders Conducted Themselves Responsibly and Democratically
On 6 August 2002, the official Commission of Inquiry into the October 2000 events (hereafter "the Commission") heard testimony from three academic expert witnesses: Danny Rabinowitz, Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Tel Aviv University; Nadim Rouhana, Professor of Sociology, Anthropology and Psychology at Tel Aviv University and Director of MADA: Arab Center for Applied Social Research; and Yoav Peled, Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University. The three experts gave testimony on the relationship between the state of Israel and its Palestinian citizens, the status of the Palestinian minority in Israel, the alleged responsibility of the Arab leadership for the October 2000 events, and the causes of these events.
In February 2002, the Commission sent warning letters to 11 Israeli government ministers and police officers, and to three Arab public representatives, advising them that they are liable to be harmed for their actions and/or omissions during the events of October 2000. The letters to the Arab leaders allege that between 1998 and 2000, and during the October 2000 events, the leaders "encouraged the use of violence as an instrument to achieve the goals of the Arab sector in Israel." The warnings were issued against Member of Knesset (MK) Abd el-Malik Dehamshe; MK Azmi Bishara; and Sheikh Ra'ed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel.
At the hearing on 6 August 2002, the expert witnesses disagreed with the Commission's statements in the warning letters, contending that the leaders of the Palestinian community in Israel behaved responsibly and democratically both before and during the October 2000 events. The experts testified as follows:
Professor Danny Rabinowitz
- Prof. Rabinowitz argued that the October 2000 protest demonstrations were not caused by alleged incitement by the Arab political leadership. He testified that the demonstrations were prompted by the provocative visit of then-MK Ariel Sharon to al-Haram al-Sharif compound in Jerusalem on 28 September 2000; the killing of seven Palestinian worshippers and the injuring of others by Israeli police, in the compound on the following day; and the killing of 20 Palestinians, including 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura, by the Israeli army on 30 September 2000, events which were broadcast on satellite television.
- Prof. Rabinowitz also presented a historical overview of leadership models within the Palestinian community in Israel. Formerly, leadership was vested primarily in the mukhtar, or village mayor, who was perceived as little more than a mediator between the Israeli military government and his own community, he was an instrument of the government who lacked any real political power. The current political leadership in the Palestinian community, Prof. Rabinowitz argued, is very different; they are better educated, better informed of the rights of Palestinian citizens, and pursue their own political agendas.
- Prof. Rabinowitz referred in his testimony to the "stand-tall generation," young politically-active Palestinian citizens of Israel aged 20-29, who he believes were the major participants in, and leaders of, the October 2000 protest demonstrations. Prof. Rabinowitz argued that the demonstrations were not inspired by incitement from the Arab political leadership, but rather by the new political awareness of this "stand-tall generation," and its feelings of anger and frustration towards the government.
- Prof. Rabinowitz also discussed theories of textual interpretation, particularly the ways in which the meanings of texts shift as they move from one cultural context to another. He observed that the Commission had failed to consider this contextual shift in its readings of political pamphlets produced by the political bodies represented by the three Arab leaders warned by the Commission.
- In his testimony on the production of police knowledge about Palestinian citizens, Prof. Rabinowitz presented numerous police documents which refer to the Palestinian community as a hostile enemy. The police employ militaristic terms in their analyses.
- Testifying on the Islamic Movement in Israel, Prof. Rabinowitz presented the Movement as a legitimate segment of Palestinian civil society, acknowledging its pragmatism and consistent service to the Palestinian community in Israel.
- Prof. Rabinowitz further testified that there are difficulties in considering the statements made by the Arab leaders as incitement. In his view, the Arab leaders made efforts to prevent the violence which took place in October 2000. Prior to the events, they wrote numerous letters to relevant government officials that addressed the primary source of the problem, namely excessive use of force by the police against Palestinian citizens.
Professor Nadim Rouhana
- Prof. Rouhana addressed the importance of national identity. He argued that the Israeli government's policies of appropriating Palestinian citizens' lands, and resettling the owners elsewhere, have been principal contributors to making land an essential component of Palestinian identity. As such, any threat to Palestinian land is perceived as a threat to the Palestinian national identity as a whole. Illustrating Palestinian responses to such threats, Prof. Rouhana made reference to land-related protest demonstrations such as Land Day 1976, and recent events in Umm al-Sahali, Lod and al-Roha.
- Prof. Rouhana testified that the actions of Palestinian demonstrators in October 2000 should be understood as a spontaneous protest against threats to the Palestinian collective identity, and not a result of any statements made by Arab leaders.
- Prof. Rouhana presented research demonstrating that Palestinian citizens of Israel distinguish between two basic components of the state, accepting the legal institutions which express the state's political existence, while rejecting the state's Zionist ideology. Conversely, the majority of Jewish Israelis do not distinguish between the political and ideological components of the state.
- Further, Prof. Rouhana presented statistics and information on the growing racism in Israeli Jewish society against Palestinian citizens of Israel. He testified that such racism necessarily reaches the police, contributing to their increasing hostility towards Palestinian citizens. Prof. Rouhana added that the issue of incitement during the October 2000 events cannot be separated from the behavior of the police towards Palestinian citizens.
Professor Yoav Peled
- Prof. Peled argued that, in a liberal democratic society, the state should recognize the collective rights of ethnic and national minorities, particularly indigenous minorities. Prof. Peled observed that leaders of the Palestinian community in Israel have sought these rights in many different ways, though never by calling for violence, as other oppressed minority groups have done elsewhere. It is the obligation of the state, he argued, to initiate, rather than impede, the foundation of independent cultural institutions for the Arab minority, as well as appropriate representation within state institutions. He argued that Israel is not a liberal democracy, but rather an ethnic democracy or ethnocracy, excluding and negating the collective rights of the Palestinian community. Prof. Peled noted, however, that the recent Supreme Court decision requiring mixed Arab-Jewish cities in Israel to add Arabic to all traffic, warning and other informational signs in their jurisdictions is a first step towards recognizing Palestinian collective minority rights (See Adalah News Update, 26 July 2002, "Supreme Court Issues Historic Judgment Affirming Collective Rights of Palestinian Minority in Israel.")
- Prof. Peled testified that many of the questions that the Commission asked of the Arab public representatives were clearly inappropriate, as they centered on issues of personal opinions and beliefs. Such questioning exceeds the mandate of the Commission, he noted, and is improper given that the Commission is an instrument of the state.
- Prof. Peled stressed that any democratic state should be understanding of the statements made by the Arab public representatives, particularly as these statements come from the political leadership of a national minority that suffers wide-ranging discrimination. Like the other experts, he concluded that the October 2000 demonstrations were legitimate protest demonstrations, and that the behavior of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel and the Arab public representatives was responsible and democratic.
See also Adalah News Update, 7 August 2002, "Supreme Court Rejects Adalah's Petition to Rescind Commission Warnings Against Arab Public Representatives."
