The intolerable ease with which a weapon can be obtained is not just the result of a desire by criminals or other negative elements in Arab society to walk around with them as if it is part of a "culture" or a desire to instill fear in others.
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It has to do with supply and demand, and as long as criminal elements are able to get their hands on Israeli military weapons, this phenomenon will only grow.
Two questions are on Arab society's minds: Why is it that elite Israeli intelligence able to locate any weapon hidden in a home or a cave in the Palestinian territories or any weapons mill in the Gaza Strip? Israeli forces are able to pinpoint any spot where weapons are situated if they are to be used against Israeli citizens.
The second question is: How are weapons continuously pilfered from the Israel Defense Forces, the organization tasked with ensuring the State of Israel's security, and yet nothing is done to treat this problem at the root? Is it official policy to shutting our eyes to the problem, or is it systemic? Police data points to an absolutely shocking number of weapons, more than all the weapons in the hands of Arab, Druze, and Bedouin soldiers in the IDF and the security forces, in Arab Israelis' hands.
Despite police efforts over the last year, we have buried a disturbing number of victims who paid the price of the use of illegal weapons with their lives, and that's without taking into account the thousands of incidents in which criminals used automatic weapons to spray bullets at the homes of individuals, some attorneys, mayors, doctors, or public officials criminals and "send a message." In all of these instances, the weapons they used were IDF-issued.
From the founding of the state and up until 20 years ago, anyone who possessed a weapon was known. They were small in number and comprised those who collaborated with the Shin Bet intelligence agency and security forces. Some of them were criminals who had weapons for deterrence purposes but rarely used them.
Today, things have changed. Every 14-year-old boy can get a weapon should they desire one. There have been cases where police have discovered weapons in high-school students' backpacks in the Galilee and Triangle regions as well as in the South. This phenomenon should keep every Israeli citizen, both Jewish and Arab, up at night.
The government was right to approve a multi-year plan, as well as billions of shekels, (around $780 million). Over the last decade, however, the problem has never been with the plans but their implementation and regulation. Perhaps now that crime has become a strategic threat to both Arab and Jewish society, the plan will be implemented in its entirety, although I do not think we will see the results for at least another year and a half.
Dominant figures in Arab society, along with local authorities, civil society organizations, youth groups, and large companies should be involved in the plan's implementation. Young people who lack motivation and the proper framework are at the most risk of finding refuge in the criminal world.
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