Israeli Commission Calls Occupation Policies "A Systematic Miscarriage of Justice"

By Donald Neff

It was 11 years ago, on Feb. 9, 1984, that a report prepared by a special commission appointed by the Israeli attorney general was released deploring violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians living under occupation. To the outrage of many Israeli government officials, the report added that Israeli occupation troops and Jewish settlers were engaged in a massive miscarriage of justice against Palestinians.

Known as the Karp Report after commission chairman Deputy Attorney General Yehudit Karp, the report declared that the Israeli administration of justice in the occupied territories was in need of "a radical reform of the basic concept of the rule of law in its broadest and most profound sense." ¹

The report found that Jewish settlers were regularly protected by the army and seldom arrested for offenses ranging from shootings to massive destruction of property against Palestinian residents in the occupied territories. In essence, the report found that settlers considered themselves above the law and refused to cooperate with Israeli police investigating Palestinian complaints. The report commented:

"Israeli residents of the territories are given to understand that they are soldiers to all intents and purposes...Israeli residents of Judea and Samaria, explicitly relying on this assurance, refuse to cooperate with the police or provide information; they reject any contact with the police, basing themselves on 'high-level policy' and declaring that they are under no obligation to cooperate in this matter."²

Particularly cited in the report were the radical settlers living in Kiryat Arba and the adjoining Palestinian city of Hebron. The report said the settlers' refusal to cooperate with civilian police was "tantamount to civil rebellion."³

The report was considered so critical of Israel's occupation policies that the government kept it secret after its initial submission on May 25, 1982, meanwhile charging that it was unfair and misleading. But public pressure and Karp's resignation from the commission in protest of the suppression of the report finally caused release of a censored version 20 months later. The full report has never been released.

Still, on the basis of the censored report, the Jerusalem Post editorialized:

"The Karp Report bears out the initial suspicion that a systematic miscarriage of justice is being perpetrated in the West Bank. Jewish settlers, wishing to assert their rights to the area, take the law into their own hands and refuse...to cooperate in police investigations...The police, deferring to the army, fail to stand on their own rights, and the army tends to look benignly on those it views as its soldiers. The result...is that files are closed without anyone being booked."

Settlers were taking the law in their own hands and were being protected by occupation authorities.

Although Israeli officials roundly condemned the report as exaggerated, its essential charge that settlers were taking the law in their own hands and were being protected by occupation authorities was dramatically confirmed a decade later. In the aftermath of the 1994 massacre of 29 Palestinian worshippers in Hebron's Ibrahimi mosque by Jewish settler Dr. Baruch Goldstein, Israeli police and troops openly admitted that there were different laws for Jews and Palestinians.

Chief Inspector Meir Tayar of the border police stationed in Hebron testified before a special commission investigating the Feb. 25 massacre that troops had standing orders never to shoot at Jewish settlers even if the settlers were shooting at Palestinians. Tayar said of the massacre: "Even if I had been there I would not have been able to do a thing because there were special instructions regarding this. The open-fire orders were that if a settler in Hebron fires purposefully, under no circumstances should he be shot at." He added that the order applied even if the settler was shooting at Israeli troops, saying: "The order, as I interpret it, is to take cover so as not to be hit, wait until the gun jams or the clip is empty and try to overpower him with other means."⁵

Similar revelations had been made several months earlier by reserve paratrooper Amit Gurevitz. But, like the Karp Report itself, they were ignored by the government. Gurevitz revealed in a newspaper interview that the beating of Palestinians, vandalizing their property or otherwise humiliating them in front of soldiers was not cause for arrest.⁶

In January 1994, the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz reported a radio broadcast in which an Israeli officer identified as Colonel Y said that the standing orders of the army in the occupied territories were "never, under any circumstances, and in no case whatsoever, to shoot at any Jew." The author of the article, correspondent Amnon Denkner, commented that "when an Arab is thought to be a danger to the life of a Jew, there is no problem. Just kill him and feel good." ⁷

On March 15, 1994, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reported that the Israeli army, police and courts failed to enforce the law against Jewish settlers who killed Palestinians. The report said 62 Palestinians had been killed by settlers between 1988 and 1993. During the same period, 1,145 Palestinians were killed by Israeli security forces, compared to 117 Israeli civilians and 64 security personnel killed by Palestinians.

The B'Tselem report said a study of 48 cases in which Palestinians were killed by settlers showed that Israeli authorities "apply an unstated policy of tolerance, compromise and failure in bringing about full justice" against settlers. In the cases studied, only 13 settlers were brought to trial. Only one was convicted of murder, one of manslaughter, six of causing death by negligence and two of shooting in a residential area. Another 27 cases were closed without prosecution. The report said: "In many cases...no investigation at all is carried out...Israeli authorities have failed in the task of protecting the life, person and property of the Palestinians."⁸

Said B'Tselem researcher Eitan Feiner: "A settler can act with virtual impunity in committing violent acts against Palestinians."⁹Thus, 11 years after the Karp Report, the same abuses, the same favoritism toward settlers and the same violations of law were still endemic in the occupied territories.

RECOMMENDED READING:

Amnesty International, Amnesty Report: 1988, p. 239

Cohen, Stanley, "Talking About Torture in Israel," Tikkun, November/December 1992.

*Findley, Paul, Deliberate Deceptions: Facing the Facts about the U.S.-Israeli Relationship, Brooklyn, NY, Lawrence Hill Books, 1993.

Karp, Yehudit, The Karp Report: Investigation of Suspicions Against Israelis in Judea and Samaria, Jerusalem, Israeli Government, 1984, reprinted by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington, DC, 1984.

Shahak, Israel, "Israel's State-Assisted Terrorism: 'Settlers' as Armed Combatants," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, February/March 1994.

*Sprinzak, Ehud, The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right, New York, Oxford University Press, 1991.

U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1993, Washington, DC, Government Printing Office, February 1994.

NOTES:

¹Karp, The Karp Report, p. 49. Also see Sprinzak, The Ascendancy of Israel's Radical Right , pp. 87-88.

²The Karp Report, p. 41.

³Ibid., p. 46.

⁴Jerusalem Post,2/9/84, quoted on the back page of The Karp Report printed by the Institute of Palestine Studies.

⁵Joel Greenberg, New York Times, 3/11/94.

⁶Amit Gurevitz, Haolam Haze, 11/17/93, quoted in Israel Shahak, "Israel's State-Assisted Terrorism: 'Settlers' as Armed Combatants," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, February/March 1994.

⁷Amnon Denkner, Ha'aretz, 1/9/94, quoted in Israel Shahak, "Israel's State-Assisted Terrorism: 'Settlers' as Armed Combatants," Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, February/March 1994.

⁸David Hoffman, Washington Post, 3/15/94.

⁹Joel Greenberg, New York Times, 3/15/94.