Kk-Forum,
artikkel om politiets opptreden i Haaretz, ulik opptreden iht
demonstranters etnisitet. Noen folk er mer verd enn andre.
Knut Rognes
***************
http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/htmls/kat11_4.htm
Without live bullets, without dead bodies
By Nehemia Strasler
Violent demonstrations broke out in Prague last week during the joint
conference of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Young
people arrived in the Czech capital from the four corners of Europe to
protest globalization and capitalism.Thousands of these protesters were
anarchists and hooligans, who exploited the opportunity to destroy, to
perpetrate violence and to do as much damage as possible. They were dressed
in black from head to toe and came armed with chains, knives and other
weapons. They swept through the streets of Prague, leaving behind a trail
of destruction - ripping sidewalks apart with shovels, hurling rocks at
police officers, beating them with long poles and even throwing Molotov
cocktails at them.
The lives of the police officers were in danger. Many of them were injured
and required hospitalization. They defended themselves with shields; they
sprayed the protesters with tear gas; they dispersed them with water
cannons; they struck out at them with clubs; and they even arrested dozens
who were held for questioning.
However, despite this difficult situation, no Prague police officer would
ever have dreamed of using live ammunition. Nor did the Prague police
position snipers at strategic locations so that they could "eliminate"
protesters. The people of Prague know that in a democratic country, police
and security forces do not fire live ammunition against demonstrators. If
live bullets are used and if civilians are killed, harsh criticism is
directed against the police; senior police officers pay for the tragic,
horrible blunder with their jobs; and the episode goes down in the history
of the nation as an infamous blot on its collective record.
In democratic states, the police force is a professional agency that
specializes in crowd dispersal through the use of a variety of methods, but
not by the use of bullets.
The police in Israel also know how to disperse crowds without having to
kill anybody, but this know-how is applied only when the demonstrators
happen to be Jews. The facts speak for themselves. During the course of the
violent demonstrations on behalf of former Shas leader Aryeh Deri; in the
harsh clashes with Ethiopian immigrants who were protesting their treatment
by the authorities; in the riots organized on Bar-Ilan Street in Jerusalem
by members of the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, some of whom hurled
rocks at police officers; and during the closure of major traffic arteries
and intersections by angry workers, the police never once fired a shot, not
even a rubber-coated bullet.
Yet, when a protest march was organized by local residents of the Harakevet
district of Lod, the police did fire rubber-coated bullets at the
demonstrators, wounding a large number of Arabs in the upper parts of their
bodies. When the Bedouin held a demonstration near Omer, the police fired
live bullets, killing one of the protesters.
Over the past week, police bullets killed 10 Israeli Arabs who participated
in the demonstrations. Although these were violent clashes that were
undoubtedly of a grave nature, the situation did not automatically warrant
the use of live weapons. Even the police are not claiming that the lives of
the officers at the demonstrations were in "substantive and imminent
danger," a situation that, in accordance with a Supreme Court ruling, would
justify the use of live ammunition.
The victims were not holding firearms when they were shot. The police
opened fire because this is how they were taught to disperse Arab
demonstrators. The police know that they have a license to shoot Arabs,
regardless of whether those Arabs live on this or that side of the pre-1967
borders of Israel.
The police began to fire on the protesters in the very first hour of the
demonstrations, as if they were dealing with enemies of the state who must
be "put out of commission" - permanently. The police conveniently forgot
that they were, in fact, confronting citizens of this country who were
demonstrating because their pain is very real. Israeli police officers are
trained to solve any problem involving Arab citizens by means of force. And
if that does not work, then by means of more force - because "the only
language that the Arabs understand is the language of force."
Nonetheless, the bullets and the deaths did not make the job of dispersing
the demonstrators any easier for the police. To the contrary, they only
fueled the flames: The demonstrations continued; the violence actually
increased; and the protesters maintained their siege of many of the
country's highways.
Haifa Police Chief Dov Shechter authorized his personnel to use live
ammunition against demonstrators in the city "after the rubber-coated
bullets and tear-gas canisters run out." Does this mean that inadequate
handling of crowd dispersal situations and faulty organization are
sufficient justification for killing civilians?
One of the television camera crews of Channel Two happened, quite by
accident, to film an incident in Nazareth in which seven police officers
cruelly beat two women, Dr. Nassrin Assouli and her sister, who were
protesting the actions of the police, but who were completely unarmed,
holding neither rocks nor clubs in their hands. The police officers cursed
Assouli, humiliated her, hurled her to the ground, kicked her and broke her
shoulder with a rifle butt. If this incident had not been photographed, the
police would undoubtedly have denied that it ever happened.
And it is quite clear that this was not an isolated episode. How can we
explain, for example, the fact that as pediatrician Dr. Ataf Ramadan was
innocently driving down a side street in Nazareth, police suddenly let
loose with a a volley of bullets directed at his car, wounding his wife in
the chest and arms? In what possible way had she endangered the lives of
the police officers?
Because of heavy pressure from the leaders of the Israeli Arab community,
Prime Minister Ehud Barak was forced to agree to the appointment of a
commission of inquiry. This commission should be led by a courageous
magistrate, who should study each and every fatal shooting incident and
determine whether, in each case, the life of the police officer who fired
the shot was in "substantive and imminent danger," or whether the motive
for the fatal bullet was pure hatred.
The magistrate heading the commission should also reach relevant executive
conclusions regarding all levels of the law enforcement establishment,
including Police Commissioner Yehuda Wilk and Public Security Minister (and
acting Foreign Minister) Shlomo Ben-Ami.
It is simply intolerable to see senior police officers creating a wall of
dead bodies between Jewish and Arab citizens of this country, thereby
effectively destroying all of the achievements, all the cooperation and all
the friendly ties associated with peaceful ethnic coexistence in Israel.
Israeli Arabs have always been, and continue to be, welcome and equal
citizens in this country. They must enjoy full rights, including the right
to demonstrate without having to count the live bullets or the dead bodies
in the aftermath.
*********************
Knut Rognes
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