Arab-Jewish Clash (Acre-Riots): 8 years after the October Riots, NOTHING has been done to implement the recommendations of the OR-COMMISSION in regard to Israel’s Arabs (From Oct 10, 2008 to Present)

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A series of Arab-Jewish clashes after Acre-riots: 6 teens arrested for torching Arab apartments (9 Jews arrested in Jerusalem/Tel-Aviv) Oct 21, 2008 / By Jerusalem Post

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JIWON: Time to read OLD articles AGAIN. How come Beinisch’s AG Mazuz appears again and again in ALL the weird political articles, starting from Katsav-affair? Who is he working for? Dorit Beinisch or Benjamin Netanyahu or Simply-Israel? To be exact… how many ‘POLITICAL’ things have happened since Dorit Beinisch’s appointment as President of Israeli Supreme Court?
Talkbacks: Beinisch, Friedmann, Sex-Scandal, Corruption (Kangaroo Court from Sep 12, 2003)
Article No. 24: Critical mass (Feb 10, 2007) (…) Friedmann is not the first law professor to uphold a conservative perception of the law whereby the Supreme Court should return to its classical role of resolving disputes between sides and stop its excessive intervention in decisions that are the province of other authorities. (…) “Israel is on its way to a police state,” he declared. “Members of the government and members of the Knesset are subordinated in effect to the attorney general, who acts under the protection of the courts. This is the anti-democratic revolution that is taking place under the banner of the law.”

PM Olmert: ‘I have no power or intention to change or appeal AG’s decision’
10.12.08, 19:02 / By / By Ynetnews, Roni Sofer
(…) “We walked out of the meeting with nothing. We demand truth and justice,” said Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka. “After all doors have been closed to us, there is no option left for us but to demand an international inquiry.”
Representatives of the families of those killed in the riots were also invited to the meeting, but decided not to attend, predicting it will amount to nothing.
(…) Olmert was presented with a petition signed by about 250,000 Israelis calling for cancelling Attorney General Mazuz’s decision. However, the prime minister did not change his position.
“I have no power or intention to change or appeal the attorney general’s decision,” he said. “The October Riots were an event of historical significance in relations between Arabs and Jews in the country…I think the people of Israel share in the pain of the Arab families who lost their loves ones. “
During the meeting, Olmert confronted the Islamic Movement’s Kamal Khatib, blaming its northern branch for attempting to fan the flames of hatred and destroy coexistence. Khatib responded by saying that the movement “acts in the framework of the State of Israel and adheres to its laws.”

Arab leaders urge Olmert to change decision not to try officials over October 2000 riots. (PM Olmert: Arabs have suffered discrimination.)
Oct 12, 2008 19:19 | Updated Oct 12, 2008 23:40 / By Jerusalem Post
Talkbacks for this article: 36
Photo: AP – The Galilee uprising, October 2, 2000.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday afternoon met with Shawki Hatib, chairman of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee and with several Arab MKs after leaders of the Arab sector filed a petition calling on the prime minister to reexamine the decision of Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz regarding the October 2000 riots.
Mazuz decided not to try any of the officials involved in the riots in northern Israel, in which 13 Arab citizens were killed.
Olmert said that he couldn’t and did not intend to change the decision made by Mazuz.
However, the prime minister said there was no doubt that there has been discrimination against the Arab population in Israel.
“I have decided that I must change this situation. The October 2000 events became a significant milestone in the relations between Arabs and Jews in the state of Israel. You came here today to ask me to look into the attorney-general’s decisions. I will not do that – I do not have the authority to do it, but I do have the right to share your pain and sorrow, a right that I will not give up,” he said.
Olmert said he thought the Israeli people shared the pain of the Arab families over losing their loved ones during the October riots.
“The State of Israel is a Jewish state, but it is also democratic. This means that every citizen, even if he is not Jewish, needs to feel that he belongs here,” the prime minister said at the meeting.

Channel 1 to rebroadcast documentary on death of 13 Arabs during 2000 riots amid continuous clashes in Akko
10.12.08, 12:25 / By Ynetnews, Dan Bentsur
‘I can understand the anger of the Arab population – justice is not equal,’ director says, adding ‘peace with Palestinians would ease internal tensions’
“I fear that situations like Akko will continue because we tolerate such an artificial coexistence. On both sides there are instigators, irresponsible politicians, extremist religious leaders who will promote this type of behavior,” said Julie Gal, director and co-producer of ‘October’s Cry’, a documentary on the Arab-Israeli riots in 2000 and their aftermath.
Channel 1 will rebroadcast the award winning film on Sunday, October 12 at 9:40 pm to mark the eighth anniversary of the events, during which 13 Arabs and one Jew were killed and hundreds more were wounded when demonstrations staged mainly in northern Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Intifada escalated into fierce clashes with police.

Last January Attorney General Menachem Mazuz closed the investigation into police’s conduct without charging any officers.

“We search worldwide for those who commit hate crimes against Jews, – as we should, but here at home 13 fellow citizens are killed and we have to beg the authorities to investigate and then they find no one guilty?” Gal said.
“The Or Commission (established to investigate the root causes of the riots) specifically wrote in the case of 17-year-old Aseel Asleh (the main character in the film) that the police’s conduct was unwarranted as he posed no threat,” she said.

Speaking to Ynetnews, Gal noted that both Justice Theodore Or and the late Justice Minister Tommy Lapid “spoke out against the government’s slowness in implementing the Or Commission findings, which highlighted the historic discrimination of the Arab population.
“I can understand also understand the anger of the Arab population – justice is not equal,” she said.
Gal said the Israel Broadcasting Authority publicized the rebroadcast before the recent Akko clashes, but said the clashes between Jews and Arabs in the northern city did not surprise her.
“True coexistence is still artificial, and a slight mistake, innocent or not, by either Arab or Jew can escalate into racial violence. Where were the community leaders to calm the nerves?” the director said.
The violence in Akko erupted after an Arab motorist entered a predominantly Jewish neighborhood on Yom Kippur.
Asked whether she saw any change in the State’s treatment of the Arab minority since the October riots, Gal said “Yes, I have seen many reports about greater awareness, particularly by the police, but the bottom line is that the Arab sector is still badly discriminated against by the State when it comes to budget allocation for schools, health, culture, etc. Shouldn’t this be our first national priority if we call ourselves a democracy?”
“How many films do we need about the Bedouins’ conditions in the Negev to wake up? Bedouin soldiers, many of them trackers, come back from the Gaza front to the so called “unrecognized villages” with no running water, electricity, paved roads. Isn’t this a time bomb?” she added.

‘We must learn about one another’
Gal said she believes the major difficulty in effecting change within the Arab-Israeli sector stems from the fact that many Israeli governments are short-lived and do not put the issue high on their political agenda.
“Late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was truly able to make a difference as far as allotting funds and engaging in dialogue with community leaders. He took a personal interest in assisting the Arab minority; he saw the writing on the wall and had little patience for apathy and bureaucratic roadblocks,” she said.

While Gal saw no direct link between the October 2000 riots, which according to her were “more about the Arab citizens expressing solidarity with Palestinians in the territories,” to the riots in Akko, she said achieving peace with the Palestinians would “benefit Israel internally and I open doors for better coexistence with the minority citizens.”
According to the director, Israel’s education system would have to take the lead if coexistence is to improve. “We do not put enough effort into teaching tolerance and respect for all citizens. Jewish and Arab kids must learn about one another, and meet regularly starting at an early age to get rid of the stereotypes,” Gal said.
“I am also a believer in some sort of civil service (“sherut ezrahi”) for the Arabs. Both sides are paying the price of paranoia. We are too busy being suspicious and playing into a false narrative,” she said.
“The late Aseel (October 2000 riots victim) wrote in one of his many emails ‘I can never take the word Israeli off my passport or the word Arab – which I am proud of. We can’t change what we are but we can change the way we live’. This is the partner we lost and for whom justice was not served.”

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Right-wing activists Marzel, Ben-Gvir to participate in protests against Arabs in Acre October 12, 2008 / By Jerusalem Post
DM Barak: Task force to combat settler violence
Oct 12, 2008 22:10 | Updated Oct 13, 2008 6:06 / By Jerusalem Post, By YAAKOV KATZ
Nadia Matar of Women in Green (Women for Israel’s Tomorrow) said the task force was yet another measure designed to persecute the settlers and the national camp. “At a time when the Arab enemy is raising its head not only in Judea and Samaria but also in Acre, any normal government would have a task force to deal with the real enemy – the Arabs who are eager to destroy the Jewish state,” Matar said.
In response to Acre riots, PFLP threatens to kill Lieberman October 16, 2008 / By Jerusalem Post
Acre Yeshiva head warns of larger Arab problem October 16, 2008 / By Jerusalem Post

Acre’s Arab leaders condemn driver. (Leaders decry “no similar effort by Jewish leadership…)
Oct 12, 2008 22:22 | Updated Oct 12, 2008 23:06 / By Jerusalem Post, DAN IZENBERG
Acre Arab leaders released a proclamation on Sunday apologizing for the fact that an Arab resident, Jamal Taufik, drove through an overwhelmingly Jewish neighborhood on the evening of Yom Kippur, triggering fierce riots in the city.
Acre was quiet on Sunday night, as hundreds of policemen patrolled the downtown area where Jews and Arabs live, shop and own stores side by side.
The proclamation was signed by 11 local Arab leaders including MK Abbas Zakour (United Arab List-Ta’al), Acre Deputy Mayor Gazawi Osama, three municipal councilmen – Sliman Wishakhi, Adham Jamal and Salim Nijmi – Sheikh Muhammad Madi and IBA newsman Zoheir Bahlul.
“On Yom Kippur and all the Yom Kippurs, we respected, out of our own free will and sensitivity, the holiness of the day for Jews and refrained, almost every one of us, from violating its sanctity by declining to hold events and by not driving our cars,” the proclamation stated.
The Arab leaders also wrote, “We condemn the harm done to the [driver]. This behavior is fundamentally unacceptable.”
The leaders also condemned the “acts of vandalism of a handful of irresponsible and wild members of our people who broke the law and sewed destruction by breaking show windows in downtown Acre.”
However, they also condemned “those who thought it was correct to take revenge on innocent Arab residents living in Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city. They also endured injustice, suffering and pain, not to mention material damages.
“We all suffered,” the proclamation continued. “After all, the evil harms everyone.”

But Acre’s chief rabbi, Yoseph Yashar, did not like the balance struck by the authors of the proclamation between the actions of the Jews and Arabs and the suffering of both sides.
In an interview with the Internet news site Ynet, Yashar said, “As long as they link in the same breath the riots of the Arabs on Yom Kippur eve with the acts of vengeance carried out by Jews in response, it will be very hard to calm matters down.”

Zakour told The Jerusalem Post that he had hoped Jewish leaders would reciprocate with a statement of their own regarding the events in Acre, but nothing had been forthcoming. “We felt there was no Jewish leadership that was trying to calm their side,” he said.
Zakour said that Arab leaders had met with Public Security Minister Avi Dichter after the Yom Kippur events and had promised to make an effort to calm the Arab side. “We went to the mosques, we talked to the residents, we walked through the market,” he said.
On Saturday, “after sensing that there was no similar effort by the Jewish leadership,” the Arab leaders decided to draft the proclamation. “I am proud of it and I hope the Jewish side will also publish a similar one,” said Zakour. “With good will on both sides, we will rebuild Acre.”

But Eli Ben-Shoshan, a shopkeeper and former head of the committee of storeowners on Rehov Ben-Ami, the city’s main shopping street, told the Post he was not surprised by the violence that erupted on Yom Kippur.
“I told an Arab neighbor of mine on Yom Kippur eve that I was going home with a bad feeling,” he said.
According to Ben-Shoshan, there had been a tradition in Acre that Jews gathered after prayers on Yom Kippur eve in the plaza in front of City Hall and mingled until the early hours of the morning. Starting three or four years ago, however, groups of Arab youths had started causing trouble.
“They rode horses through the plaza and threw plastic bags filled with water or firecrackers at the crowd,” he said.
Ben-Shoshan charged that the city did nothing to stop the troublemakers and that each year the youths became bolder.
He was skeptical about the claim that Jewish-Arab coexistence in the city had been shattered. “It was an artificial coexistence,” he said. “There are gangs of Arab youths who frequently attack Jews. Jews don’t go out at night in the downtown area.”

While the Arab population of Acre once lived entirely in the old city, today thousands have moved into the downtown commercial-residential area north of the old city walls. The riots on Yom Kippur eve began in a mainly Jewish neighborhood almost two kilometers east of the center of town and even further from the old city.
After false rumors spread that Taufik, the Arab driver, had been killed by Jews, a large mob of Arabs marched to towards the eastern neighborhood and smashed shop and car windows on Rehov Ben-Ami.

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Likud/Israeli-Arab MKs: Acre Violence is Arab/Jewish pogrom against Jews/Arabs
Last update – 22:25 09/10/2008 / By Haaretz, Yoav Stern and Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: Acre, pogrom, Arab

Israeli Arab MK Ahmed Tibi (Ra’am-Ta’al) on Thursday responded to violent clashes between Jews and Arabs in the northern city of Acre, calling the violence a “pogrom perpetrated by Jews against Arab residents.”
“The police displayed helpless discrimination in its treatment of the assault on Arab residents,” Tibi said.

The riots erupted before dawn Wednesday when an Arab resident of the mixed town drove his car into a Jewish neighborhood during the holy day of Yom Kippur, during which even secular Jews refrain from driving out of respect. Jewish rioters alleged that the man defiantly played loud music, and proceeded to assault him, sparking large scale clashes between Jews and Arabs in the area.

Israeli Arab MK Mohammed Barakeh (Hadash) said the incident had less to do with Yom Kippur than a deliberate “escalation of racist speech” ahead of Israeli municipal elections next month.
“We see a great danger in these attacks. They are similar to the pogroms that Jews were exposed to at the hands of the Nazi gangs in Germany,” Barakeh told reporters.
When Acre police intervened, Barakeh said, “they fired rubber bullets and tear gas” to prevent Arabs defending their homes, to which police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld responded that police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse rioters, not rubber bullets.

MK Yossi Beilin (Meretz) also responded to the incident, saying “exactly eight years after the October riots [that sparked the second intifada], it appears that nothing has been done to implement the recommendations of the Or Commission in regard to Israel’s Arabs,” referring to the probe panel that investigated the 2000 riots, during which Israeli police shot and killed 12 Israeli Arabs and one Palestinian.
“We are sitting on a barrel of explosives, and every time we are surprised anew when the tension explodes, rather than making a genuine effort to stop it,” Beilin added.

MK Yuval Steinitz (Likud) said that Public Security Minister Avi Dichter and the police commissioner must both resign over the incident. “The state of Israel has become the only country in the Western world where pogroms are carried out against Jews, with physical harm to them and their property and chants of ‘death to Jews,’” he said.
“A police force that is unable to protect Jewish neighborhoods needs to take a hard look at itself,” he added.

MK Eliyahu Gabbay (National Unity-NRP) said that “time after time Jews in mixed cities and in towns adjacent to Arab villages find themselves persecuted, victims of violent rampages by Israeli Arabs fueled by Arab nationalism and Islamic fanaticism and with the encouragement and incitement of Israeli Arab leaders.”
“Israel’s leadership needs to wake up, regain its composure and start protecting its Jewish citizens with actions, not just words,” Gabbay went on to say. “Many Jews living in mixed cities feel that they live in the Diaspora. The government has to employ every measure to restore security to Jewish citizens.”

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Police: We had no prior intelligence about Acre Jewish-Arab riots
Acre sees worst violence in years as Jews and Arabs resume clashes
Last update – 03:35 10/10/2008 / By Haaretz, Jack Khoury, Nadav Shragai and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents
Tags: Israel News, Yom Kippur, Acre

A police source said on Thursday that the police had no prior intelligence about the possibility of clashes between Jewish and Arab residents in the northern town of Acre, which erupted on the eve of Yom Kippur on Wednesday.

The riots, some of the worst the city has seen in years, erupted around midnight on Wednesday after an Arab resident of the Old City of Acre drove his car into a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in eastern Acre, where he said he lived. Jewish teens at the scene said the Arab man was deliberately making noise and smoking cigarettes. The teens attacked the man and shortly afterward, a group of Arab teens arrived at the scene, igniting a riot.

When news of the incident spread, a crowd of Arabs began to gather along the main commercial street in the new city, Ben Ami Street. Dozens of cars and shops along the street were vandalized.

Police faced off against hundreds of Jewish rioters chanting “death to Arabs” and trying to block the city’s main thoroughfare. Border Police and officers on horse-back meanwhile tried to prevent the rioters from reaching the city center, where hundreds of Arab rioters had gathered.

Arabs and Jews hurled rocks at each other at the Acre train station and police used water hoses and tear gas to disperse them. In the Old City, Arabs threw stones and burned tires. Two people were reported injured, one by a police horse and the other by a stone to the head.
Police summoned reinforcements from other districts earlier Thursday in anticipation of a renewal of the violent clashes. Hundreds of police are now stationed in the city.

Police Commissioner David Cohen met Thursday in Acre with Mayor Shimon Lankry and lawmakers David Azoulay (Shas) and Abbas Zkoor (United Arab List-Ta’al), who live in Acre. “The goal now is to restore quiet,” Cohen said. “I call on both sides to continue coexistence as it has been for years. Public leaders should work to bring quiet and order,” he added.
The police source also noted that violence between Jews and Arabs stems from gaps in infrastructure and services between the two communities, and is the responsibility of the state but often lands in the “police emergency room.”

Police conduct during the Acre violence will be scrutinized in the coming days. During violence in October 2007 in the Upper Galilee town of Peki’in over the installation of a celular antenna, a police inquiry committee found that the Northern District had failed in its response.

Acre police chief Avi Edri told Haaretz that the initial incident was an isolated one that escalated due to the involvement of Jewish and Arab gangs.

So far, a number of suspected rioters have been arrested and police say they plan to detain more suspects. “We will deal with all the rioters and those who take the law into their own hands with an iron fist,” said Chief Superintendent Edri.

In a letter to Public Security Minister Avi Dichter, Zkoor wrote that police should be deployed around Jewish towns on Yom Kippur to prevent Jews from stoning cars driven by Arabs. Dichter’s office on Thursday confirmed receipt of Zkoor’s letter. “Without reference to his letter, police have deployed this year, as every year, with reinforcements ahead of the holidays and particularly Yom Kippur.”

Zkoor warned on Thursday that it will be very difficult to hold the upcoming annual Acre theater festival in the Old City. He also warned of clashes during Sukkot in the mixed Arab-Jewish Wolfson neighborhood.

Barenboim Loves the Knesset~ ^.*