Former Supreme Court Justice Theodor Or criticized the police internal affairs unit yesterday for failing to fully implement the recommendations of last year´s Or Commission report on the October 2000 Israeli Arab riots.

"The writing is still on the wall," Or said in his first public comment on the report a year after he submitted it to the government

The Or report recommended that the internal affairs unit conduct 10 separate investigations into incidents in which citizens were killed by police gunfire. A year later, not a single investigation has been completed and the police have not recommended indicting a single officer.

"It´s unfortunate that so far nothing more has been done in the internal affairs investigation," Or told a packed auditorium at an event sponsored by Tel Aviv University´s Program on Arab Politics in Israel.

However, Or also had praise for how police had learned some lessons from the riots, in which 13 Israeli Arabs and one Palestinian were killed and hundreds of civilians and police officers were wounded.

The commission´s scathing report covered issues ranging from Israel´s treatment of its Arab minority to police preparedness for serious civil unrest. The report described Israel´s treatment of its Arabs as "the most important and sensitive domestic matter on the state´s agenda."

It lambasted what it called a consistent policy of discrimination against the community by all Israeli governments. Or criticized the ministerial panel that recommended the Or Commission´s conclusions should be implemented - this was adopted as a government decision in June

The committee, headed by Justice Minister Yosef Lapid, has only partially resolved the many issues included in the original report, Or said.

The retired Supreme Court justice also defended the commission he headed and which included Judge Hashem Hatib and Prof. Shimon Shamir. Criticism leveled at the commission last year included charges that the panel was negligent in its investigation of the deaths and did not reach meaningful conclusions about the conflict.

Among other factors, he blamed the commission´s flaws on Arab families who did not respond to the commission´s pleading that they allow pathologists to conduct autopsies on their sons´ bodies, and the police internal affairs unit for not collecting sufficient information from the field.

Or criticized Arab leaders who ignored the Lapid panel, rejecting its makeup and requesting that they be allowed to choose who should sit on it. He said he rejected the Lapid committee´s remarks that if Arab youth did national service, the state would have more reason to be concerned about their rights. This implies a justification of current discrimination, Or said.

Or condemned "the large gap" between "plans, declarations of intent, and even government decisions" on the one hand, and implementation on the other.

He called on the government to implement a significant change in its order of priorities and warned against complacency. "The more distant we become from the events of those days," said Or, "the more concern there is that the sense of urgency for dealing with the topic is going to be eroded." (© Copyright 2004 Haaretz. 09/02/04)