Amnesty condemns Israel over Arabs
By Phil Reeves in Jerusalem
12 November 2000
Damning new evidence of Israel's abuse of Arab children
has emerged,
adding another tier to the stack of human-rights violations
committed
over the past six weeks of violence.
It comes amid deepening controversy surrounding the visit
to the
region of Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner for Human
Rights, whom
Israel's Foreign Minister has refused to meet to discuss
accusations
of excessive force.
A report by Amnesty International released last week,
but barely
publicised, describes how Arab teenagers have been arrested
in the
middle of the night, subjected to high-pressure interrogations
–
including beatings – and held behind bars for
more than a month.
The focus of Amnesty's latest investigation was not the
Palestinians
taking part in riots in the occupied territories, many
scores of whom
have been shot dead by the Israeli army, but members of
Israel's one
million Arab population.
Hundreds of Palestinians living within Israel have been
arrested after
riots erupted in Arab towns early last month in protest
over killings
by the Israeli security services in the early days of
the intifada.
Some have been held in custody, denied bail or immediate
access to
lawyers.
Amnesty's findings are further evidence that, after moves
towards
reform, Israel is slipping back into the pattern of widespread
human-rights violations that characterised the first six-year
intifada.
It includes the story of two young Palestinians in east
Jerusalem who
say they were beaten, shackled, and kicked while lying
on the ground
with hoods on their heads. They say they were repeatedly
slapped
during interrogation. One said that 20 police officers
entered their
detention cell where he and 30 other young Arabs were
held and
randomly beat them with batons.
Israel's Arab population – a fifth of the total
– has long
complained of sweeping civil-rights violations by the
Jewish majority.
But the riots, the worst in the 52-year history of the
state, dealt a
severe blow to the already strained inter-ethnic relations.
Thirteen
Israeli Arabs were killed during the unrest. Since then,
Jewish
suspicions that Israel's Arab population is a fifth column
for
rebellious Palestinians in the occupied territories have
deepened.
According to Ha'aretz newspaper, the security forces have
drawn up
plans to fortify Jewish communities close to Arab villages
in Israel
on the grounds that they are next to "hostile populations".
The
government plans to begin a major demographic drive to
increase the
Jewish population in predominantly Arab areas, notably
Galilee.
Amnesty's report states that Palestinians arrested, including
children
(those under 18), were beaten, shouted at, and threatened
while in
detention. It says that a round-up of Palestinians is
still continuing
in Israel, a month after the riots ended. Although they
are mostly
accused of relatively minor public-order offences, some
have been held
in custody for weeks in what the Israeli authorities justify
as an
effort to establish calm.
The human rights group also says that several hundred
Jews were
arrested after anti-Palestinian riots, some of whom have
also been
badly mistreated. But a far higher proportion of Palestinians
have
been kept behind bars.
This week, responding to pressure, the Israeli government
established
a commission of inquiry into the riots inside Israel.
An early plan
for an investigation by a weaker fact-finding committee
was abandoned
after Israeli Arab leaders refused to cooperate.
Amnesty has called on the Israeli government to investigate
its
findings, and to co-operate with the UN commission of
inquiry, under
Ms Robinson.
This seems doomed to fall on deaf ears. Israel has brushed
off
criticism by human-rights organisations about the daily
killing of
rioters, who have been more heavily targeted than the
armed
Palestinians who are attacking. There is remarkably little
internal
debate about the slow massacre committed by its security
forces.
Ms Robinson's commission has already accused Israel of
"widespread,
systematic and gross violation of human rights". This
week she saw the
evidence for herself.