The Orr Committee Violence
by IASPS Staff
Ha’aretz
reported
on March 5 that an Arab activist admitted a violent attack on police
officers testifying before the Orr Committee was planned.
The
television cameras showed a startled Judge Orr being led protectively from
his “courtroom” while Arabs physically assaulted Israeli policemen who
were effectively standing trial for having defended themselves when
previously attacked by rioting Arabs. The situation is so absurd that one
wonders why any commentary is necessary on this subject; isn’t it obvious
what is happening here? But apparently not, for the Israeli judges, courts,
government and public keep sending more policemen to
be attacked by more Arabs in Judge Orr’s courtroom.
We
wonder, though, why Judge Orr looked startled when being led from his
courtroom. Surely when one is running a circus, he should not be surprised
when the audience is enthused. Or perhaps Judge Orr was upset only because
it was now obvious that he was the clown?
There
are people in Israel who want to destroy the state. Some of these people are
Arab, some Jewish. Their reasons may be political or pathological. The
former may explain why Arafat’s advisor Tibi wants to run for Knesset to
destroy the country from within. It explains why the Arabs in Orr’s
courtroom attack Jewish policemen. The latter may explain why Tibi is
allowed to sit in the Knesset and why the previous Israeli administration
sent its policemen to face these angry crowds who admit they plan to
physically assault the policemen. Even if this were not admitted, the very
act of putting a policemen in the docket for doing his duty is an assault on
the ability of the police to enforce any amount of order in the future, or
to protect the lives of taxpaying citizens. This, of course, is the
intention of those who want the police in the docket. It is obviously the
intention of those who attack them, but also the intention of those Israeli
politicians, such as former police minister Ben Ami, who has said publicly
he did everything possible to prevent the police from enforcing order and
protecting themselves during the actual riots that threatened them in
October, and therefore it was logical he would participate in this new
attempt to use the legal system to put those police who still had a desire
to live and perhaps help their fellow citizens and country to live, in the
docket: they stand accused of wanting to live, of believing in national
existence in an age when Ben Ami and the like have decided that man has gone
beyond that, or as Ben Ami has said, the age of territorial Zionism is over,
or as Peres has said, land doesn’t mean anything because agriculture is a
small part of our GDP today, and borders should be erased and Israel should
become a member of the Arab League.
So,
here we have a Ha’aretz report, just under the previously cited
report on the physical attack by Arabs of Israeli police, that MK Ahmed Tibi
is demanding that police treat him with respect when he verbally assaults
them at roadblocks, and Knesset Committee on Committees chairman MK Yossi
Katz who endorses Tibi’s demand, and even rightwing MKs, according to the
report, citing MK Kleiner, agree that if Tibi was treated rudely this must
be stopped because it could happen to them, too, one day. It
is all part of a game, apparently. The fact that one person wants to destroy
the state is irrelevant. Because all MKs who sit with Tibi in the Knesset,
no matter how “rightwing” they are, implicitly acknowledge the
legitimacy of his “view,” his political opinion, one among many, and the
“truth” obviously must lie, as always when there are differing
“views” somewhere in between.
Thus
the Knesset has become a circus, and Judge Orr by accepting the position of
chief inquisitor, has agreed to turn his courtroom into a circus. In so
doing, he has become the clown. The whole purpose of the police-hunt
is to get the crowd enthused, to create a frenzy; and perhaps this is why no
serious steps were taken after the first physical attack on a policeman
forced to testify, to prevent future attacks. Prevent attacks? But
that is the whole purpose, to create attacks. The entire
investigation is an attack. Step right up, see the policeman foolish enough
to defend himself, see him be forced to walk a tightrope, wincing in the
lights of the cameras, 60 feet above an abyss, if he totters he will find
himself in pieces on the floor, to the cheers of the crowd.
What
Israelis and others must begin to understand is that in the midst of frenzy,
judges, too, can be dangerous - clowns on the one hand but
judge-executioners on the other, and legislators who have agreed to
legitimize those who seek to destroy them are not standing guard over their
country in some “parliamentary” way, but are collaborating in the
destruction. And what is being attacked here is not one policeman on a
witness stand, but national existence. In the midst of the circus, the
choice facing Israelis is existential: Either-Orr. Either they choose life,
or they choose Judge Orr.
