"I have been following in astonishment, apprehension, and horror for a long time, especially in recent weeks and days, the terrible wave of murders befalling our country in general and Arab society in particular...There had been over 100 murders in the country since last September."
These words were not uttered by a Palestinian representative or a human rights activist, but by the President of Israel Isaac Herzog, who was speaking last week at the opening of the Annual Conference of the Israel Bar Association in Tel Aviv.
President Herzog stressed that deadly violence from the criminal underworld poses a national emergency and was a form of terrorism threatening the entire country and requiring immediate action. "Terrorism is a threat to us all," the President said.
A similar view was expressed last month by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet who had described gangland crime and violence in general in the Arab Israeli communities as "a national calamity" and asked for the preparation of a national plan to deal with this growing problem.
As a result, an undercover unit was formed early in August to combat crime in Israel's Arab communities. This unit is called the "Sinai Unit" and is manned with 45 undercover officers who will try to combat organised crime in Arab communities.
Despite this, the death toll in Arab communities continues to rise. In 2020 there were 96 violent killings in the Arab community, while so far this year the death toll in this community is 82 and there are fears that the numbers will rise further. Although Israel's Arab community is about one-fifth of Israel's population, the number of Arabs murdered is more than half of the total murders committed in Israel.
On Thursday and Friday last week two Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed and another two wounded by gunfire in two separate incidents on Route 57 in the Sharon region and at Nitzanei Oz junction, east of Netanya. A few hours later, another two Arabs were shot in the town of Jdeidah Makr in the Galilee.
Last month Saha Ismail, the adviser on Arab affairs of Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton, was shot dead outside his home in the town of Rameh, while last Tuesday another Israeli Arab was killed in Haifa also outside his home.
Arab officials and grieving families blame the murders on police inaction and the absence of any real desire to investigate the crimes. Detectives move from case to case without finding the perpetrators. According to a recent report by the Haaretz newspaper, Israeli police have only solved 23 per cent of Arab murders this year, compared with 71 per cent for the Jewish population.
Arab Israelis blame the police for largely ignoring violence in their community, including family honour killings and violence against women, as well as blood feuds between families. They also accuse the police of failing to combat powerful criminal organizations, which often engage in murderous turf wars. They complain that policemen do nothing about violence occurring in Arab neighbourhoods. Moreover, the lack of a police presence inside the communities makes people reluctant to come forward with information for fear of violent reprisal.
On several occasions in the past, Arab citizens of Israel staged general strikes in protest over a surge of violent crimes in their communities and police indifference to intervene and punish those responsible.
Last May massive riots broke out in many so-called mixed Israeli cities, home to large numbers of both Arabs and Jews, during an 11-day conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. This "mini civil war" between Israelis and Arabs, who in the past lived peacefully next to each other, was one of the worst in Israel's history and brings to the surface long-simmering conflicts between Arab and Jews in Israel.
Some experts believe that as during the past decade police have cracked down on Jewish Israeli mobsters, organised crime moved into Arab areas in Israeli towns, where policing and security is lax. This led to the formation of Israeli Arab organised crime groups which are mainly engaged in weapons trafficking, protection rackets, extortion, pushing drugs, money laundering, and blackmailing people. These gangs often fight with other Arab gangs but cooperate with Jewish gangs for their mutual benefit.
Israeli police representatives claim that the fact that many murders in Israeli Arab communities remain unsolved is due to distrust and absence of cooperation on the part of Israeli Arabs as well as tribalism.
The Head of the newly created Crime Prevention Department for Arab areas, Commander Ygal Ezra, says that when the police arrive at the scene of a crime, Israeli Arabs may wash the blood away, remove bullets and video evidence and hide the killer.
Ezra adds that in recent years about 700 Muslim police officers have been recruited, while more police stations have been constructed in Arab quarters of several Israeli cities.
Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai tried to get the Shin Bet security Agency to combat gangland crime in Arab Israeli communities, but both the Attorney General and the Shin Bet rejected the idea, saying that such a thing is outside Shin Bet's remit.
In an editorial on the subject, Israeli newspaper Haaretz on 29 August wrote: "The bloody roster of victims of violence is proof of the failure of the Israel Police. In early August a new department was created specifically to thwart crime in Israel's Arab communities. This should have been done years ago when it became clear that the police were incapable of dealing with the huge quantities of illegal guns in these towns. Even Public Security Minister Omer Bar-Lev has admitted that normally law-abiding citizens in these communities have obtained guns for self-defence. That is clear evidence of the police's failure to provide the most basic thing: personal safety for citizens.
( With inputs from ANI )
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