No kidding...!

JERUSALEM, Sept. 1 — Finding a pattern of government "prejudice and neglect" toward Israel's Arab minority, a landmark Israeli commission of inquiry today accused the police of using excessive force three years ago to combat riots that it said had resulted from simmering, overlooked anger. [Which has only gotten only worse in the past three years.]

The commission said insensitivity by the Israeli "establishment" permitted widespread discrimination against Israeli Arabs and the buildup of a "combustible atmosphere," as, it said, a politicized Islam began to radicalize the population.

The three-member commission was charged with investigating the deaths of 13 people from police fire in October 2000, when thousands of Israeli Arabs choked streets and threw stones in solidarity with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who just had just begun their uprising against Israel. A Jewish motorist was also killed, by a stone-thrower.

Criticizing police tactics that included the use of sniper fire to disperse crowds, the report concluded that Israel "must educate its police that the Arab public is not the enemy, and should not be treated as such..."

I remind readers that this report is referring to the more than 1 million of Israel's 6.6 million citizens who are Arabs, and not to the roughly 4 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories.

While Israel is to be commended for investigating police violence toward Arabs, many Arabs feel the investigation did not go nearly far enough.

Walid Ghanaym, 37, whose brother Emad, 25, was killed, said: "If the police killed 13 Jews, what would they do? That's why we're third class."

Complete story here.