The 2023 report from Aman: The Arab Center for Safe Society (Aman) reported an unprecedented rise of 122% in the murder rate in intra-Arab Israeli violence. The war in Gaza has drawn attention away from this data, but such crimes continue.
In 2023, there were 247 murders compared to 111 in 2022, making 2023 the bloodiest in Israeli Arab society.
The number of homicide cases in the southern region increased from 14 cases in 2022 to 32 cases in 2023.
Lod is the highest among Arab towns in terms of victims of violence and crime, with 18 murders, followed by Nazareth, with 16, and 14 in Rahat. Many of the victims were young women or minors.
A variety of factors in Arab society are reasons for the crime rate
Aman, funded by the New Israel Fund, attributes the extreme increase in the 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, they continued, are 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 supporting development. This forces Arab citizens to borrow money from the black market and illegal financial transactions, the report maintained.
Murders and other violent crimes in Arab society are perpetrated especially by young people aged 18 to 24, who constitute about 10% of Israeli Arabs. In addition, the study shows the lack of jobs for young women from this age group.
“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 local Arab authorities and the institutions of the civilian society don’t 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,” the Aman report continued.
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, the organization continued.
The center urged the dismissal of Ben-Gvir from his position for his failures in preventing crime in Arab society and many other phenomena.
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