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August 23, 2002/Elul 15 5762, Vol. 54, No. 49
Barak testifies to riot panel
NAOMI SEGAL
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - The commission probing the Israeli Arab riots of October 2000 has concluded its public hearings with testimony from former Prime Minister Ehud Barak.
Barak is the most senior of 14 Israeli officials to receive letters from the commission warning that the panel's conclusions might be used against them. On Aug. 20, he became the last of more than 430 people called to testify during the public hearings.
Barak denied claims that he failed to accurately read the mood in the Arab sector and adequately prepare police for a potential outbreak of violence. Instead, he accused Israeli Arab politicians of inciting the crowd to violence.
Barak himself ordered the creation of the Orr Commission after Israeli Arab leaders rejected his initial proposal for a public panel to investigate the events, in which 13 Israeli Arabs were killed by police fire during several days of rioting.
In the letter he received from the commission, Barak was warned on five points:
- He failed to adequately prepare police for the potential violence.
- He instructed police to reopen major roads in northern Israel using "any means" necessary, regardless of the risk.
- He did not take steps to calm the situation during the first two days of rioting.
- He did not request updates on civilian casualties; and
- He did not insist on orderly documentation of his directives.
During the Aug. 20 hearing, Barak rejected claims that he failed to assess how the nascent Palestinian intifada in the West Bank and Gaza Strip could spill over into Israel's Arab sector.
Days after Palestinian violence began in late September 2000, Israeli Arabs rioted, closing off major highways, dragging Jewish drivers from their cars and beating them, chanting "Slaughter the Jews" and burning and destroying property.
Barak said he was aware that the intifada might reverberate with the Israeli Arab public, but said there had been no professional assessment of the potential scope of such a development.
Before the October 2000 riots broke out, however, "there was no intelligence assessment or specific assessment that we were on the verge of something we never saw before," he said.
Barak blamed a "separatist Arab group with nationalist political demands" for the violence. Among others, he named the National Democratic Alliance headed by Knesset member Azmi Bishara, the Bnei Kfar movement and the Islamic Movement.
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