Israeli Arab leaders have called for an international investigation of the “October Riots,” in which rioting Galilee Arabs joined in with the general attacks on Israel by Arabs in Judea and Samaria during the second Intifada in 2000. Israeli police, trying to quell the rioting, killed 13 people.

Shawki Khatib, chairman of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, told demonstrators in Sakhnin that he would present a petition demanding such an investigation to President Shimon Peres this week. “We have no faith in the Israeli justice system, which sees us as a demographic threat, so we have decided to ask the international community for help. Our intent is to try the killers of our children for murder,” he said.