The Israel Police budget for a plan to combat crime in the Israeli Arab sector has been slashed by 400 million shekels ($110 million), Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh told the Knesset State Control Committee on Tuesday.
The committee was meeting to discuss police efforts to confront illegal guns and shooting incidents in the Arab sector following a report published in August which showed that violence in the Arab sector has claimed 1,236 victims since 2000.
Alsheikh told the committee that three decades of neglect cannot be rectified in a single day.
"It took years to contain organized crime in the Jewish population," Alsheikh said, pointing out that police had worked long and hard to obtain the required evidence against the ringleaders of the Abutbul and Abergil crime families, who have since been sentenced to long prison terms.
When Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan was appointed, he asked for a budget of 2 billion shekels (then $568 million) to fight crime in the Israeli Arab population. The money was to increase police patrols, build more police stations, and encourage Muslims to enlist in the police force.
The police prepared a five-year plan to establish 17 police stations and centers in Arab communities. So far, two stations are under construction: in Kafr Manda near Nazareth and in Jisr Az-Zarqa, a particularly problematic community on the northern coast. Two contracts have been signed to build other police stations in the upper Galilee communities of Tamra and Majd El-Kurum.
Against this, the sector has largely failed to cooperate. The police have encountered some resistance by residents and regional council members to establishing police stations in existing structures, and the police said a recent campaign to collect illegal weapons in the Arab sector was essentially a "failure," as very few weapons were turned in, even though the owners were guaranteed immunity from prosecution.
In November, Erdan scolded Arab MKs for failing to use their influence to advocate for law enforcement in their constituencies.
