Opposition MKs walk out as Ben-Gvir addresses crime in Arab sector

Opposition MKs walked out of the Knesset plenum on Tuesday when National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) stood up to respond to their motion to take action against crime in the Arab sector.

Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit Party boycotted the plenum session, but Ben-Gvir was there to give the government’s response.

The motion was filed as the number of murder victims in the Arab sector this year reached 175 on Monday, which is almost 100 more than the same time last year.

Ayman Odeh: Arab sector violence caused by Israeli racism

Hadash-Ta’al MK Ayman Odeh said violence in the Arab sector was a product of Israeli racism.

Only four coalition members attended an emergency meeting to discuss the issue, he told the plenum, but 14 signed a petition to improve the conditions of Amiram Ben-Uliel, who murdered a Palestinian family with a firebomb in 2015 and is now serving three life sentences and 20 years.

“Racism is holding the Arabs responsible,” Odeh said. “Racism is when a plan was presented last year to stop violence in the Arab sector said results would be seen after a decade. Racism is when the minister who is supposed to deal with crime isn’t seen as a failure when he fails.”

There is a difference between violence and crime, he said, adding that preventing violence is the responsibility of leadership on every level from community to national, but crime is the responsibility of the government.

Odeh said the Palestinian Authority’s police commissioner told him 29 Palestinians were murdered in crime-related incidents in the West Bank this year. Twenty-seven of the perpetrators were indicted, and the police knew the identities of the other two and would apprehend them, he said he was told.

National Unity MK Gideon Sa’ar acknowledged that violence in the Arab sector was not caused by the government.

“It’s gotten worse in the last decade, and now it’s a great challenge to the State of Israel,” he said. “Organized crime is a cancer in the Arab and Druze sectors. It controls the economy and local authorities.”

The government must try to dismantle organized crime to effectively deal with the problem, Sa’ar said.

“As long as there’s no goal, we cannot deal with the issue properly,” he said. “Last year, we authorized financial courts to deal with financial crime.”

The police have to be given effective tools to deal with the issue, Sa’ar said.

“We tried in the previous government and were met with opposition,” he said, adding that the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was the opposition leader at the time, had explained in an English-language video why the biometric cameras bill, which is now being advanced by the coalition, was not an acceptable law.

Labor leader Merav Michaeli said the government was failing in its most important duty of providing its citizens with protection from crime, especially in the Arab sector.

Fewer than 10% of murders of Arabs are being solved, compared with 83% in the Jewish sector, she said.

“The police aren’t given the tools or the budget to solve cases in the Arab sector,” she added. “It’s a matter of political will. Arab crime is growing, and murder victims are piling up. The previous government put the fight against crime at the top of its priorities.”

Michaeli said there would be more than 200 murder victims in the Arab sector by the end of the year.

Ra’am (United Arab List) leader Mansour Abbas extended his wishes for a peaceful new Jewish year and said he hoped there would be fewer murders, but that was unlikely because the government is not prioritizing the issue.

“The Arab sector understands that the issue isn’t on their agenda,” he said. “The committee meets and doesn’t make a significant decision. This tells organized crime that they can continue, and no one will prevent it or punish them. When all the relevant ministers are dealing with the issue, it scares criminals. We’ve lost that, and I don’t know how we can fix it.”

Abbas suggested that the main problem was Ben-Gvir, who should admit to failure, leave, or be dismissed.

“Criminals won’t care until the government demonstrates real action,” he said. “We have a responsibility. We need to reflect on our failures. We wanted to be part of the solution.”

Abbas said the police needed to receive the tools to deal with the problem.

As Ben-Gvir stood up to respond, many opposition MKs walked out. Sa’ar stayed at first but walked out after Ben-Gvir took credit for passing laws Sa’ar had advanced last year.

“Look what happens in a debate on crime in the Arab sector,” Ben-Gvir said as the MKs left the room, encouraging them to leave and calling them racist. “Look at the picture that speaks for itself. They pretend to care about the victims. They don’t care about the victims in the Arab sector.”

He listed a series of laws that the Knesset passed this year, saying they had not been his idea, but he helped to get them passed.

“Finally, there’s a government that passes law after law,” Ben-Gvir said. “This is all happening on our watch.”