Article content continued

Photo by AP Photo/Khalil Hamra

Writing in Israeli daily Maariv on Monday, another Arab Israeli parliamentarian, Ahmad Tibi, called the police response a “huge scandal.” He said that protests by other minorities in Israel, such as Ethiopian-Israelis and the ultra-Orthodox, rarely draw such a reaction from the police.

On Sunday, the police’s internal investigations department said it would look into allegations of police violence in dispersing the demonstration in Haifa.

Speaking on Israel’s Army Radio station on Monday, Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan said people should not rush to judge the police and that an independent investigation would provide the answers to what exactly happened to Farah while in police custody.

He also announced that he planned to request the attorney general to open a criminal investigation into Odeh’s actions.

Israel’s hawkish Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman also weighed in on the fray, writing on Twitter that Odeh and his associates “terrorists.”

“Every day that Ayman Odeh and his associates are free to walk around cursing at police officers is a failure of law enforcement authorities,” he wrote. “The place for these terrorists is not in the Knesset, it’s in prison. It’s time they pay a price for their actions.”

Photo by AP Photo/Khalil Hamra

Tensions have been high over the past few weeks as Israel’s 2 million-strong Arab population has watched Israel’s lethal crackdown on Palestinians protesting in the Gaza Strip.

Last Monday was especially fraught as Israeli military snipers killed some 62 protesters and wounded thousands. Palestinians have dubbed the protests “the Great March of Return,” saying they want the freedom to return to homes and lands they were forced to leave upon Israel’s creation in 1948, they also say they want alleviation of the growing humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip.

Israel has said a significant number of the protesters were members of Hamas, the militant Islamist group that runs the strip and which is designated a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union. They say that Hamas has used the protests as a cover to try to break through the fence into Israel and attack communities along the border.

There has been international criticism of Israel, describing the use of force as excessive and disproportionate against largely unarmed demonstrators.