Summary
The commission formed on November 8, 2000 to investigate the October 2000 clashes in which thirteen Palestinian citizens were killed (Stateless Citizenship (2013), PDF p.33).
Details
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Responding to allegations over the October 2000 events, Prime Minister Ehud Barak called for the establishment of a ‘committee of clarification’; the Or Commission was formed on November 8, 2000, investigated the October clashes and collected testimonies by Israeli police officers and commanders, as well as Palestinian citizens and community leaders (PDF p.33).
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Throughout these accounts, witnesses repeatedly confirmed that Palestinian demonstrators were unarmed, that use of physical beatings and live ammunition by the security forces was widespread and indiscriminate, and that Israeli police provided insufficient protection for Arab citizens under attack from Jewish provocateurs and violent mobs (PDF p.33).
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Chapter 2 of the same book gives the fuller October 2000 account: demonstrations throughout Northern Israel met with live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas killed ten Palestinians in three days and thirteen Palestinian citizens by the end of ten days, with hundreds injured and more than one thousand arrested; testimonies confirmed the demonstrators were unarmed and posed no threat, police protection against Jewish vigilantes and mobs was inadequate, and force, beatings and live ammunition were widespread and indiscriminate — yet, contrary to the Commission’s 2003 recommendations, in January 2008 the Attorney General closed the files and issued not a single indictment, and ten years after the killings no police officer, commander or political leader had been held accountable (Adalah, The Inequality Report, 55, at PDF p.87-88). Nimer Sultany’s criticisms of the Commission — its depiction of Arab protesters, implication of Arab culpability, absolving of officials and leaders, and failure to include Sharon’s Al-Aqsa visit — are recorded at PDF p.87, footnote 44.
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The two parts of the book give the Commission’s formation differently: the Introduction gives November 8, 2000 (PDF p.33), while Chapter 2 states the response “led to the Or Commission of Inquiry on September 29, 2000” (PDF p.87, as printed, before the October clashes had concluded). Both dates stand as printed in their places; the discrepancy is recorded under Open questions on the source page.