Ben Gvir nixes campaign against Arab crime
According to the anti-violence campaign group the Abraham Initiatives, 31 people in the Arab community have been murdered in the past two-and-a-half months.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has reportedly cancelled an anti-crime drive in several Arab towns because the project is being run by the local office of the Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint), which he called “a leftist organisation”.
The far-right nationalist made the remarks at a recent meeting when it was decided that his ministry would no longer fund or cooperate with the project, dubbed “Stopping the Bleeding”, the Kan public broadcaster reported.
The National Security Ministry said in a statement responding to the report that the project was cancelled because JDC Israel, the local division of the global JDC organisations, had not provided the required semiannual reports on its activities for a year-and-a-half.
“The days when funds and budgets are distributed not according to criteria and proof of activity are over,” it said.
JDC Israel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz, a former senior police officer and deputy public minister who helped establish the Stopping the Bleeding project, told Kan that its cancellation is “very concerning”.
He criticised the alleged labelling of the Joint as “leftist” and slammed Ben Gvir for “trying to generate more political spin”.
“This is another example of his incompetence,” Segalovitz said.
According to the anti-violence campaign group the Abraham Initiatives, 31 people in the Arab community have been murdered in the past two-and-a-half months. In a statement, it said, “What drives the National Security Minister is specifically to stop the most important program for dealing with violence in Arab settlements. Minister Ben Gvir is not qualified to fill the position and it costs human lives.”
The program was running in seven Arab towns as part of a government decision in 2021 to clamp down on spiralling violent crime in the Arab community. It is a joint project involving the National Security Ministry, the Israel National Authority for Community Safety, the Attorney-General’s Office, the police, the Hebrew University criminology department, the Prime Minister’s Office, and JDC Israel.
It was being operated in Tur’an, Tamra, Jisr az-Zarqa, Umm al-Fahm, Tayibe, the Bedouin town of Rabat, and the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Lod. The aim was to draw on the experience gained in those locations to develop a national plan for Arab community crime, according to National Security Ministry documents.
Arab communities in Israel have seen a surge in violence in recent years, driven mainly, but not exclusively, by organised crime.
Ben Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, ran on campaign promises of cracking down on Palestinian attacks and Arab Israeli crime. He demanded the National Security Ministry as a condition for joining Netanyahu’s coalition, while also insisting on increasing his control over the police force.
Last Tuesday, Deputy Attorney-General Gil Limon told a Knesset committee meeting that the increased government influence over police policy has harmed the force’s operative independence and increased its politicisation.
TIMES OF ISRAEL
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