Why the Appalling Rate of Murder in the Arab Sector Fails to be Addressed

In some jurisdictions, like in Mexico, the provincial police especially tend to be brazenly corrupt, operating as essentially the biggest gang in town. They often act in concert with the ‘deeper state’ actors (the cartels) in their criminal enterprises. Material support runs from providing actionable intelligence, closing the streets surrounding a target (to enable full unencumbered space for carrying out attacks) to actual participation in murder. Such States cannot be said to even have a semblance of a competent police force.

In the West, the Police also obviously have contact with the criminal underworld, most notably through their ranks of informants, which assist them in keeping their fingers on the pulse of criminal activities afoot. Law enforcement is invariably localized. The role of the police is to keep the excesses of crime off the streets to curate a semblance of middle-class normality. The police are paid from the public purse by municipal property taxes, so they must be seen to be serving the interests of their constituents. In most districts there is an area of vice which is semi-tolerated by the police. By necessity, a calculated decision is made to sequester crime to typically poverty-ridden areas because otherwise the tendency is for it to spread to more affluent areas whose property owners are shouldering the lion’s share of tax which is funding the police.

In Israeli Arab communities, the picture is further clouded concerning homicides related to organised crime by the overarching state security concerns that uniquely impact Israel. City municipal Police Chiefs are primarily concerned with keeping killing outside their city bounds. The majority of homicides are committed in Arab villages, towns and their immediate environs. But a significant proportion also occurs in majority Jewish cities such as Haifa in the north.

Police Chiefs have complained of a conflict of interest between their aims of investigating and prosecuting such murders in the Arab sector and the protection afforded to senior members of Arab crime families that are deemed as strategic assets by the State Security Services. They serve an indispensable role in preventing gun trafficking to West Bank militants from the Israeli Arab sector. They are privy to direct intelligence concerning imminent terror attacks from within the Arab Israeli community. And they have valuable communication with some hostile elements in the territories. Overall, they can be viewed as keeping a lid on terrorism directed from their own communities against Israel. Since 2023 there has been much fanfare about Ben Gvir harnessing the resources of the internal security services towards fighting the endemic murder rate in the Arab sector. This has found opposition from both the right and left on the basis of  squandering valuable resources and concerns about the infringement of citizens’ civil rights respectively. Regardless, due to the enumerated considerations above this initiative has had little impact in furthering investigations on a command level. Handlers have their prized informants and no degree of apparent political direction is going to alter these facts on the ground.

Another hurdle preventing robust investigation by the police is the general insular nature of Arab society viewing the state police with suspicion. Police recruitment drives amongst the Arab community has only had a marginal impact in altering this common cautious perception. But more so, is the deep-rooted social taboo of informing other Arabs to what they perceive to be the Jewish Authorities. A strong historical inter-generational clan conflict also has some bearing on the lack of reporting. This is particularly true in the Negev Desert among Bedouin tribes with ancient blood feuds. Apart from those involved in criminality who are directly targeted in shootings and car bombings is the appalling number of unconnected family members and Bypassers who are also tragically killed. Under such circumstances their relatives are often pressured and coerced to agree to unofficial arbitration under the premise of being given ‘blood money’ to compensate for their loss rather than going to the police.

So the combination and confluence of these major factors conspire against the course of justice being pursued. It isn’t as if the Israeli criminal justice system is lacking the legal framework to assertively prosecute criminal suspects. The conviction rate for defendants who are formally indicted is over 99%. This is achieved by having fewer protections for a criminal suspect than in comparable democratic jurisdictions. In the U.S. for example an arrest can only be made on the basis of probable cause, while a lower evidentiary standard of reasonable suspicion is used in Israel to effectuate an arrest. During custodial interrogation an Israeli suspect doesn’t have a right to an attorney present, while in the US the suspect has the right to representation at every critical stage of the proceedings. As the investigation continues, the strict U.S. Fourth Amendment provisions concerning unwarranted searches and seizures are routinely used to suppress from the record evidence that has been gained by unlawful government action under the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine. No such equivalent air tight protection exists in Israeli Criminal Procedure and such evidence may be admissible in court.