Published: 13 June 2023
Last updated: 5 March 2024
Organised crime sweeps Israel's Arab community; Netanyahu sparks alarm over proposal to use Shin Bet security forces to control the violence.
Since 2023 began, 102 Arab citizens have been murdered in Israel – an unprecedented figure and more than three times the number for the same period of 2022.
The murders are the result of warring organised crime families and came to a head, with 18 murders over the past two weeks, 10 of them within two days.
Another attack was averted when police arrested three people suspected of plotting a murder outside a hospital in northern Israel on Sunday.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants the Shin Bet security service to be called in to combat organised crime in the Arab community.
The idea was raised at a meeting between police and politicians at Netanyahu’s office last week.
But Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar warned that diverting the organisation's resources to combatting crime in the Arab community will have negative effects on the fight against terrorism.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Prosecutor Amit Aisman also presented concerns that Shin Bet involvement would violate the rights of Arab citizens.
National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz has sharply criticised Netanyahu’s failure to address the problem and said National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was not competent to handle the problem.
He said a full national mobilisation was necessary to address the issue, including “sufficient funding, attention to strategy and proper management,” and warned that “anyone who thinks the violence of criminal gangs will remain limited” to the Arab community is misguided.
What is causing the violence?
One of the main drivers is a feud centred in Nazareth between two major crime families: the infamous Hariri family and the lesser-known Bakri family.
The struggle began in September 2022, when Naim Suri, a convicted murderer who was released after serving 32 years in prison, was shot and killed. Suri did not belong to either group but ran his own 80-million-shekel ($A33m) loan racket. The police suspect the Bakri crime family was behind Suri’s murder, and that afterward, the two families began warring to fill the power vacuum that Suri left behind.
In the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lod, the problem of criminal violence has become so serious that its mayor, Yair Revivo, took the unusual step of bringing a temporary cease-fire agreement to two warring Arab crime families.
The agreement included a commitment by Revivo to push local police to refrain from activity such as arrests and demolitions of illegal structures, if the peace is maintained.
READ MORE
Overruling objections, PM says Shin Bet must join fight against deadly Arab mob crime (Time of Israel)
Police arrest suspected 'hit squad' outside hospital in northern Israel (Haaretz)
The Shin Bet Doesn't Want to Lead the Fight Against Crime in the Arab Community. But Who Will? (Haaretz)
Gantz Slams Netanyahu on Arab Crime: The Ben-Gvir 'experiment' has failed (Haaretz)
ANALYSIS
Shin Bet not magic wand to stop Israeli Arab sector killings (Herb Keinon, Jerusalem Post)
There are no quick fixes in bringing down crime in the Arab sector. Problems of this proportion are not solved with one magic wand or a single silver bullet. Rather, it will take a series of steps.
The Arab crime families are out of reach of the Israel Police (Jack Khoury, Haaretz)
The murder of five Arab citizens near Nazareth would have been received with apathy were it not for the high number of victims. Even though Arab society bears some responsibility, providing security is the role of the state.
Israel's inept fascists: why Netanyahu is revelling in Ben-Gvir’s failure (Anshel Pfeffer, Haaretz)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is only too happy to make his national security minister a convenient scapegoat for the breakdown in law and order, even if this leaves Israel with a weakened police force.
Photo: Guns found after a suspected hit squad was arrested outside a northern Israel hospital on Sunday (Police photo)
