The Knesset Interior Committee discussed, Wednesday, the investigative report into events in Peki’in last year, with the participation of Police Chief Dudi Cohen.
Cohen told the committee that, looking back, he would not hesitate to order the operation in Peki’in that resulted in violent clashes with Druze residents last October. “The events in Peki’in were grave and difficult,” Cohen said. “It is forbidden for us, as police and as a state, to ignore lawbreakers. We must explore ways to prevent such incidents from reoccurring.”
Druze leaders told the committee that they consider themselves Israelis in every regard, but refuse to accept the manner in which the police behaved toward them. “We request from the committee to examine from the ground up the events in Peki’in and to issue recommendations,” they said.
The clashes were the result of ongoing attacks on nearby Jewish residents and the rebuffing of smaller police forces that came to carry out the arrest of suspects in the vandalizing of a cell phone tower. Police then entered the town in force and were confronted with force. Scores were injured in the clashes – two seriously. Many of the 23 injured police were also Druze.
In the ensuing violence, most of the Jewish homes of the mixed Jewish-Druze town were burned and looted. More recently, the home of a European Jewish family that moved to Peki’in was also attacked. Aside from a few elderly Jews who take care of Peki’in’s ancient synagogue – the town’s Jews who fled have not returned since.
A police investigative report issued last week listed several systemic failures in the upper command echelons of the Northern Region Police during the preparation stages of the operation in Peki’in. The report placed most of the blame on Northern Police Commander Shimon Koren. The report did not find fault with the entry to Peki’in itself, but said the most problematic aspect was the leak of the fact that police were planning the operation, which allowed crowds of youths to assemble and orchestrate violence.
Cohen rejected claims that the police responded to the disturbances in Peki’in with excessive force. "The police will continue to enter Peki'in and to carry out their duties,” Cohen promised. “On the day of the clashes, 124 policemen entered Peki'in in order to arrest 17 civilians who had set fires and thrown hand-grenades. It was a reasonable police force.”
Click here for an Arutz-7 photo feature on Peki'in