Reply #3: O.J. Simpson in Wadi Ara [View All]

[eyl]

The closure of all the investigations that were opened against Israeli policemen following the October 2000 riots comes as no surprise. It would only have been surprising if the police's systemic failure had been translated into indictments against one officer or another.

Essentially, the bloodshed during these riots stemmed from the police's lack of preparedness to cope with nationalist disturbances - events that are somewhere between law enforcement and combat, in which a violent mob endangers besieged policemen and citizens, thereby producing a sense of "the few against the many." Wisdom on the part of senior local officers can make a difference - in Jaffa, for instance, no one was killed - but the one constant was the imbalance in the size of the forces. An isolated, frightened policeman is liable to pull the trigger, while his better-protected colleague will show more restraint.

The Or Commission, like other state commissions of inquiry before it, was simultaneously too weak and too strong. It was too weak because it could only make recommendations, and government agencies can always find creative ways to circumvent recommendations. The Or Commission could order the Justice Ministry's Police Investigations Department (PID) to open investigations, but it was powerless to make these investigations end in indictments. Yet it was also too strong, because it could subpoena witnesses - but their testimonies could not then be used in a criminal proceeding. Thus the suspects were already well rehearsed by the time their criminal investigations began. And without evidence from either the scene of the crime or an autopsy, it is hard to turn question marks into exclamation points.

More