Violence in Israel's Arab sector rises sharply in 2023 - report
Reasons for the rise in violence are government failures, poverty, lack of jobs, and traditions of 'family honor.'
There was an unprecedented rise of 122% in the murder rate in intra-Arab Israeli violence in 2023, the Aman Center (Arab Center for a Safe Society) reported Wednesday.
The war in Gaza has drawn attention away from this data, but such crimes continue.
In 2023, there were 247 murders, compared with 111 in 2022, making 2023 the bloodiest in Arab Israeli society.
The number of homicide cases in the southern region increased from 14 cases in 2022 to 32 cases in 2023.
Lod was the highest among cities in terms of Arab victims of violence and crime, with 18 murders, followed by Nazareth (16) and Rahat (14). Many of the victims were young women or minors.
A variety of factors in Arab society are reasons for the crime rate
Aman, which is funded by the New Israel Fund, attributed the increase in violence in Arab society to the current “extreme governmental marginalization and discrimination policies” and distributing budgets meant for Arab society to “settlers and Jewish education,” as well as decisions taken by far-right Internal Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Other factors were the granting of few building permits by the state, the lack of manufacturing and work in the Arab community, the high poverty rate among Arab families, and the lack of legal and financial services and loans for supporting development, the report said. This forces Arab citizens to borrow money from the black market and illegal financial transactions, it said.
Murders and other violent crimes in Arab society are perpetrated mostly by people aged 18 to 24, who constitute about 10% of Arab Israelis, the report said. There was a lack of jobs for women from this age group, it added.
“Other reasons behind the increase in violence are internal factors, such as some inherited customs in the Arab community, like revenge and family honor,” the report said. “The local Arab authorities and the institutions of civil society do not do enough to fight this phenomenon either through education, awareness, creating ways to peacefully solve the arguments and conflicts, or effective actions to deter people from being violent.”
As the war in Gaza goes on, there has been a return of crime organizations taking over Arab towns because the presence of policemen in the Arab streets has declined, it said.
The Aman Center urged the dismissal of Ben-Gvir from his position for what it said was his failures in preventing crime in Arab society and many other phenomena.
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