Eradicating the violence in the Arab sector

• Author: SUSAN HATTIS ROLEF
• Published date: 03 October 2021
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

usually useless chatter.

The news is really awful: some 100 Arab-Israelis deliberately murdered or accidentally killed by Israeli Arabs since the beginning of 2021; Arab crime families demanding protection money to protect businesses, farms and other premises all around the country from acts of crime, most of which they themselves perpetrate; tens of thousands (some say hundreds of thousands) of illegally held weapons in the Arab sector, some of them actually stolen from poorly guarded IDF camps in the south; Arab youths behaving on the roads of the Negev as if it were the Wild West, and fearlessly harassing and attacking young Jewish women walking on their own on the streets of Beersheba, and surrounding Jewish towns and settlements.

One doesn't have to be an expert to understand that all of this does not have a single cause and that there is no single solution to it. At the base of the treatment of the problem, there must be a real desire and determination to start resolving the mess, the actual allocation of large designated budgets and manpower for the assignment and an understanding that the Arab population and authorities must be actively involved in the process, as far as feasible.

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Among the issues that must be addressed are the eradication, or at least weakening of the Arab crime families and organizations; a solution of the phenomenon of the unrecognized, and subsequently uncontrolled Bedouin settlements in the Negev; the allocation of large budgets to strengthen the weaker parts of Arab society, and its civil institutions; and a more serious effort than is currently being made to collect illegally held weapons in the Arab sector.

Last week it was announced that Prime Minister Naftali Bennett will stand at the head of a designated team of ministers trying to combat the violence in Arab society. The team, which is to include representatives of the Interior Ministry, Finance Ministry and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), was to have met for the first time yesterday. Simultaneously, Bennett appointed Deputy Public Security Minister Yoav Segalovitz (Yesh Atid) to serve as the project's manager, coordinating the Government's contention with the problem of violence and crime in Arab society.

If those who follow the news religiously have the feeling of déjà vu, that is because exactly eight months ago, a month...