Friday, October 04, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
The head of the left wing T'ruah Rabbis group tweeted yesterday:
Today, Palestinian citizens of Israel are striking to protest government lack of attention/resources to violence within Palestinian Israeli communities.— Rabbi Jill Jacobs (@rabbijilljacobs) October 3, 2019
Pay attention those who care about Israel/Palestine but too often fall into dichotomies. https://t.co/e3bTxe7HOf
Is Israel responsible for Arab on Arab violence?
Israeli police agree that the amount of crime in the Arab sector is intolerable, but the Arab leaders don't call for their members to cooperate with police. Israel is trying to build more police stations but there is a significant lack of support from the Arab communities.
Haaretz wrote just last week:
[T]he police seem confounded. “Revenge is a real problem, I say it without shame,” a top police officer told Haaretz. “People are dying for no reason, over something that began with a kiddie fight that turned into a clash of clans.”
In private conversations, the police blame community and religious leaders, mainly the members of the Joint List. “Why don’t we hear the Arab Knesset members calling for police stations to be built in the Arab cities?” said the same source. “Why don’t the mayors call on the people to turn in their arms? The police can’t be everywhere.”
Acting Police Commissioner Moti Cohen said this week that the police are responsible for public safety, but can’t operate on their own, and that they expect the cooperation of the Arab community itself.
The police and public security ministry are planning a drive to have Arabs turn in their guns, without penalty, next month. Although the drive will be publicized, hopes are not running high. Some mayors already refused to cooperate, and everybody has the 2017 fiasco in mind, when exactly three guns were turned in, as well as some other weapons.
And the problem goes beyond that. Palestinian religious figures have issued fatwas against women going to Israeli police when they are threatened, often by their own family members. Nearly half of the murdered Arabs are women, many for "honor" reasons.
But it is so easy to blame the Jews for the Arabs killing each other and not cooperating with Israeli authorities, like Jill Jacobs does. Much easier than asking them to stop honor killings, revenge killings, clan clashes, and to hand in their illegal guns. Much easier than actually asking Arabs to take responsibility for their roles in the high crime rates among their fellow Arabs.
