On Sunday this week, while young people were leaving Rahat to confront at the entrance to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva, Yossi Nissan, head of the Lehavim local council, sat with his petition signed by about a hundred heads of authorities from all over the country. From Ma'ale Adumim.
The petition, which is intended to reach government ministers, reads: "Unfortunately, in recent years there has been a great deterioration in the sense of personal security in the country, and in the Negev in particular, in the face of escalating violence on roads, homes and local streets." Their spirit.
"We, the heads of the authorities who signed this document, want to set minimum sentences and detention without alternatives until the end of the proceedings in the following sections: burglary, car theft, throwing stones at vehicles on roads, violent offenses, armed robbery and aggravated assault, risking human life in the lane traffic".
Yossi Nissan (52) is convinced that the next step will be to pass legislation to treat the alarming lesion.
"Once the enforcement system does not speak to the punishment system in the same language, the crime becomes lucrative. A policeman who risks his life to catch a thief, tells me: 'The next day I see him eating shawarma in the mall, what motivation does that give me?'
"I have Bedouin council workers, normative people, who need to be hugged, and in contrast the rioters need to be 'eliminated' and put behind bars. I was born and raised in Be'er Sheva, and there has never been a situation where people were afraid to walk on the street at night.
We will see another murder, and more shootings in Be'er Sheva, and liquidation of accounts and robbery in broad daylight, because the thieves will have weapons and the citizens will want to defend themselves.
That's the way to anarchy. "
The Lehavim local council, with a population of 7,000, is located about a kilometer by air from Bedouin Rahat.
This is a well-kept locality, private houses, surrounding greenery, which is ranked 10th in the socio-economic cluster, such as considered localities in the center of the country - Kfar Shmaryahu and Savyon.
And despite the developing paradise in the Negev, Lehavim is now planning to build a perimeter fence with an investment of millions, establish community policing, and soon the community will inherit security cameras and renew the center, which will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
All to prevent the rampant crime from spilling extensively inside.
"We have increased the security system," says Nissan. "There is something to steal in it, but we are not supposed to pay the price."
Yossi Nissan.
"We have increased security", Photo: Efrat Eshel
• • •
Not far from Lehavim is the Bedouin local council of Kia, which has a population of 17,000, and in front of it was built the new settlement of Carmit, which currently includes about 500 families.
If in Carmit a plot for private construction costs more than NIS 1 million, in Balkia a similar area will cost NIS 150,000.
In one locality live medical personnel and pilots in the Air Force, and in the other face severe unemployment and rising crime.
"Balkia has firing at the level of a brigade exercise, you see tracer bullets flying in the air," says Yossi Nachman (36), a private chef who lives in Carmit.
"Five bullets hit our houses in the last six months alone. The house next to me hit a fence, and on the other side of the street a bullet hit the sign. Whenever there is a shot I go up the hill opposite and see everything with my eyes. An ATV driver shoots in the air while driving. Crazy reality."
Nachman's house, born in Be'er Sheva, is carefully designed.
He pours us the coffee from a machine that is the last word, but his eye has not left the mobile device and the local WhatsApp emergency.
"When there is an emergency message, at that moment everyone who is present arrives immediately. Here is a message: 'The houses in the contractor area were broken into again.' The rooms, opened closets, they may have put the tenants to sleep.
"At three-thirty the eldest daughter woke up, saw the car headlights on and called her father - who immediately realized they were thieves. A police officer who was called saw the burglars pass by, made a U-turn and chased after them. They ran away. "
Did you try to talk to the heads of Lakia, the neighboring community?
"I talked to the head of the council, but he also suffers like me. The young people there do not see anyone."
The makeshift office of Lakia council chief Ahmad al-Assad, 56, is now in a local community center because the council building is being towed for lengthy renovations. Al-Assad is well aware of the complaints. "You say there is no governance, and we say we have lost the country," he says.
"The state treats the Arab population in the south as a fifth corps and an environmental, safety and economic hazard. Because of five thieves and some young people raging on the road, the fate of 300,000 residents is doomed? They all have criminals and thieves? That nonsense? "
Ahmad al-Assad.
"There is control", Photo: Efrat Eshel
Do you not agree that the situation got out of hand?
"We have control over everything that happens in the locality, but there is no control over one thing: the source of the weapons - which is the army. Some have taken care to disperse weapons knowing that they will not be aimed at Jews, but at Arabs, So the police will not be able to move around here with mobility, but will need armored vehicles like in the territories in Judea and Samaria.
After all, how did it all start there?
In stone-throwing. "
You can not control the residents? In the nearby Carmit, they claim, they are suffering non-stop.
"My bureau chief is from Carmit, and the bookkeeper too, and the weapons that fire in the area - I also suffer from it. In the morning we had massive shootings, real battles. This is a family where one shoots at the other. The weapons are within everyone's reach, and the problem is that Boys who hold a rifle and do not know how to maintain it, endanger themselves and the environment.
"I say to the residents of Carmit: we asked, we shouted, we cried and no one listened. The police do not give us an account. So I apologize that it is surfing to you, but turn to the state, it is responsible. "It will end when a Jew is harmed, and then there will really be a problem. If it is a Bedouin, it is normal, acceptable."
The Bedouin settlement of Kia, this week.
The head of the council: "Because of five thieves and some young people raging on the road, is the fate of 300,000 residents decided?", Photo: Efrat Eshel
• • •
A year ago, at the end of November 2020, a squad of thieves tried to steal the vehicle of Aryeh Schiff (71), a resident of Arad.
Schiff, who was sleeping at the time in a nearby trailer, woke up and came out armed with a gun.
He shot dead Muhammad al-Atrash, 34, who was sitting in the stolen vehicle.
Last week, the court sentenced Schiff to nine months of community service and a fine of NIS 10,000.
Judge Revital Yaffa-Katz wrote in her decision on the sentence: "The defendant was dragged into an event that he did not initiate or plan, something that was actually done by the deceased and his accomplices.
Defendant stood alone, late at night, in front of the deceased and his accomplices - all masked, sufficient in appearance to cast terror and fear.
.
Schiff will begin performing service work in early December, at a nursing home in Arad.
All he wants now is to return to the routine of yesteryear and quiet.
Just want quiet.
Arie Schiff, Photo: Dudu Greenspan
"My father did not want to be a sergeant, he has no such purpose. And do not worry, he will not be seen in 'The Singer in a Mask,'" Schiff's son, 35, is convinced.
"My father believes that his punishment, the very killing of a person, he receives and carries for the rest of his life. A lot of people wanted to see us fight and come to total acquittal. Maybe it was possible, but it was on our backs as a family, and my father is not a young person. We did not want To pass on the nightmare. "
Still, your father today symbolizes the phrase "my home is my fortress."
"I do not think he came from this place, but from a place of real anxiety for his life and my mother's life. He went out to the battlefield. My father over the years became anxious, and he was not always like that. He used to run 11 gas stations in the south, and the workers were customers That's how I grew up as a child. But in recent years more than once or twice they broke into his house, emptied drawers, took TVs, cars.
"The street is down, and you can roll over a stolen car to the cemetery - and then do whatever you want without being disturbed. At one point insurance companies did not agree to insure my father's vehicle.
"You see, human life is a supreme value, and my father believes in it with all his heart - but he did not lick honey. He supported four children, and the sons of Belial felt comfortable in what he worked and achieved for years. There is no one factor that will protect his basic right. It is not written between a state and a citizen, which says: 'You are depriving yourself of the rights of self-defense, because we take it upon ourselves' ".
Ben Schiff, son of Arie (in the small photo).
"My father did not fall asleep. He gets up several times a night, looks out the window, symptoms of post-trauma," Photo: Efrat Eshel
It is not clear whether this is directly related to the Schiff affair, but data from the Israel Police show that in the past year there has been a drastic decrease in the number of crime cases reported in Arad.
In the first three quarters of 2021, only 27 investigation files were opened, compared with 82 in the corresponding period last year.
The number of car thefts this year is 14 - compared to 32 in 2020.
"There was also a decrease because the head of the large and active burglary squad in the area, Muhammad al-Atrash, is no longer with us," Ben-Schiff is convinced. Schiff. After all, the police knew who al-Atrash was long before he came to us, and the fact that the other two burglars from that night were not caught, and the case was closed, is a disgrace. ".
Are you not afraid of revenge?
"Opponents of Arie Schiff know that correcting an injustice in an injustice is illegitimate. After all, it is impossible to say that it is wrong for my father to press the trigger, and now to press the trigger in his direction. I believe there is no need to worry."
Muhammad al-Atrash arrived in Arad from the nearby town of Molda (Sawa), located on Road 31. It is one of the seven recognized Bedouin settlements in the al-Qassum Regional Council, and is also known as the seat of the al-Atrash tribe.
This is not the first time one of the tribe members has been shot and killed during a criminal incident.
In early September 2009, Hussein al-Atrash was shot dead by the security coordinator of the village of Ben Nun in the Ayalon Valley, while trying to steal a car.
In January 2007, it was Khaled al-Atrash who was shot dead when he tried to break into the lone farm of Shai Daromi, near the town of Meitar in the Negev.
South wins the homicide offense.
Judge Rachel Barkai wrote in his verdict: "The reasonable doubt raised by the defendant as to the justification for the defensive act he took remained gnawing at my heart to the point that I have no choice but to determine that it has not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the continuation of the shooting is clearly unreasonable."
"Let's not mix salad with chickpeas," asks Radi al-Atrash, 60, Muhammad's brother.
"South warned, he told police they were trying to steal his herd. He also did not think of killing, but it was night and he did not know how many people were standing in front of him. There is a difference between such a case and a pistol and a bullet in the head from zero range, as Schiff did.
"After the sentence now given to Schiff, anyone who sees an Arab next to his vehicle can kill him. There is no need to think. A fine of 10,000 shekels and nine months of service work, that's all. If an Arab had killed, he would have received a life sentence. Options. Instead of a gun, pick up the phone, call the police - and in two minutes they would arrive. Is it better to live in depression now than to kill? "
How many times can a citizen restrain himself when trying to damage his property?
"Let them also try to steal 30 times. Only Bedouins steal? Jews do not rob banks? Are there no other thieves in the world? Listen, we have aholes, and it is only the fault of the courts. The problem is that the same one comes to the judge with a lawyer who gets good money, and is immediately released. What will he do? He will return to the crime. "
Is there a fear that you will avenge the death of your brother?
"They always say that if there is a problem, do not fix it with another problem. At least that is my opinion."
In Molde Yashar we were spotted, the "foreigners" who invaded the compound.
After all, Jews will not just enter the dusty, graceless and infrastructure-free place on their own initiative.
Most of those present asked not to speak or to be photographed.
"What is a Bedouin? One who lives all day in shit," says Iyad al-Atrash, who owns a transportation company in the locality.
"He can not build a house for a child, live like a human being. What job do you have to give to the Bedouin in the area? What factories?
"So what will the rest do? They will steal, kill, sell cannabis. They will not let them live, so the young people go knowing that if they are caught - then either they will be shot or they will be imprisoned. They steal to live. Muhammad al-Atrash did not make it."
• • •
Be'er Sheva, the "big city" of the Negev, has become a magnet for many of the young Bedouin - who find places to spend their day, and some also find trouble there.
"I was told that it (the crime of crime; EL) will not reach Be'er Sheva, the (criminals; EL) do not have the means and capabilities," Mayor Rubik Danilovich said this week at a press conference after the dramatic events at Soroka Hospital. Sheva, moved to Ashdod, Gan Yavne, Rishon, Tel Aviv, Raanana and Herzliya.
There are no limits to crime.
When you do not put an end to it in a determined way, it will reach everywhere.
The public is losing confidence and trust.
Talk to the public. "
A Border Police vehicle at Soroka Hospital, after the riot this week.
"When you do not put an end to it in a determined way, it will reach everywhere," Photo: Dudu Greenspan
Lior Bar (50) owns the Paz gas station at Makhteshim Junction in Be'er Sheva, a station that has been robbed no less than 11 times in the last seven years.
"These are just incidents of burglary and robbery. There were another million and one incidents, like stealing cars from customers. They tried to stab me twice. Last Thursday a drunk and intoxicated driver drove in reverse and got into equipment at the station. If you had asked me until recently about leaving business, I would firmly , But now I no longer see light.
"A country is a huge thing, and when it decides to take care of something it knows - no matter if it's right or left. Don't get me wrong: I have Bedouin workers, and they themselves cry out for help because they experience the same violence. Offenders have no inhibitions. Two years ago I had Robbery, and one of the security guards, a Bedouin from the army, the coolest man in the world, refueled at the station across the street. When he heard the distress button he ran to help. It is their job, their livelihood. "
Bar followed Arie Schiff's trial closely, and "held his fingers."
According to him, only a few months ago he found himself in a situation similar to the case of Schiff, who only luckily ended differently.
"A young Bedouin had an argument with an employee at the station's store, who is in an advanced stage of pregnancy. The employee asked for a sixty mask on his face. The guy pulled out a phone and started taking pictures, then a shift supervisor came and commented on him.
"I tried to push them out of the store, and at one point the guy punched me. Do you know the fingernail they grow? So he smeared it with epoxy that made it hard - and so he stabbed me in the hand. They were eight, and started running towards me. I pulled out a gun. I did not aim, I just got out of my vagina - and the guy called the police, and I'm a lieutenant colonel in the army, I volunteered for the Israel Police.
"Following his complaint, a criminal case was opened against me. I was interrogated for hours as the last of the perpetrators. Forget that they later closed the case out of innocence, but took fingerprints and DNA from me.
And the guy who stabbed me?
He is needed for questioning, has not appeared for court hearings on other criminal cases.
Understand how the system works. "
You did not complain about him?
"Of course I complained about him. So what did they do in the first stage? Close the case, because he did not use a knife. If those young people were closer to me, I would step on the weapon and shoot one of them - then I could end up like Arie Schiff. Police said it was not a danger Haim".
The last attempted robbery at Bar's gas station was recorded on September 18, 2021, and also on September 18, 2014, seven years earlier, there was a robbery, a coincidence of the same date.
Bar has already briefed his employees that in the event of another incident - that they do not object and thereby endanger their lives.
In any case, the police report that since the beginning of the year, more than 126 requests for detention have been submitted until the end of the proceedings for weapons offenses - an increase of 26 percent compared to the previous year.
"The police presence in recent months has increased, but do you know of tsunami warnings when you put sandbags for protection? That's about the ability of the police to deal with the wave of crime," Bar sighed.
"This is not a drop in the ocean, but a drop in the ocean. Only on Friday did a traffic policeman who refueled with me say that in the last month he caught the Bedouin driving three times without a license and with a vehicle without a test. They brought the young man to court, where he was released." Dangerous to the public '".
• • •
The State Comptroller's report on governance in the Negev examined aspects related to the issue from August 2018 to July 2020. It states that only ten percent of drivers in the south are from the non-Jewish population, but 73 percent of reports of life-threatening offenses and 63 percent of road bullying reports The Negev region - sign up for them.
Due to the problems created in the area, the Negev Rescue Committee was established at the beginning of the year, an apolitical organization of residents, which seeks to rescue the southern part of the country from the problem of personal insecurity.
The committee is headed by Almog Cohen (33), a former police officer who now owns the "Pancake House" in Be'er Sheva.
"When I opened the business in 2018, Bedouin tried to take protection from me, but they did not succeed," Cohen says.
"The city is inundated with problems. There is a tremendous escalation in the whole issue of crime. It is washing over us, and the state, which treated the Negev as the backyard, is now reaping the fruits.
"Our argument is not against one government or another, but for policy. It starts with budgets for health and education - and it ends with crime. Today girls will not walk around the mall alone. They do not want to, and reality does not allow. Harassment and sexual assault, whistles.
"We set up the committee because we believe the area can be saved, but it should be consistent, determined, painful treatment. In the end it is important to emphasize that we are law-abiding, but there is a great mourning: if anarchy drips, law-abiding will become law-breakers. It is human nature. "Can tolerate the rise in the price of the cottage, the jump in real estate prices, but he can not stand being touched by personal security."
During our tour of the Negev we have repeatedly heard people warn that in real time they will not hesitate to use their personal weapons.
"We are pushing for the expansion of a southern law," says Yossi Nachman of Carmit.
"If the existing law is meant to protect you inside your territory, as Southern did, our goal is a law that will allow protection outside of it as well.
"If Aryeh Schiff had gone to jail, it would have caused great harm. In my opinion, now a deterrent has been created, because criminals understand that their blood is in their heads. I said to my wife: 'I will go to jail and not let anyone break into my house.' I sleep with a gun under my pillow.
"During Operation The Wall Guard, we returned one day from Eilat, at the height of the riots. We passed through Be'er Sheva in two vehicles, me and my neighbor, with women and children. In a military briefing before arrests. We drove at 160 km / h, with a bullet in the barrel, just to cross an intersection.
And you are in the fucking State of Israel!
"Those who do not live here do not understand what we are talking about. When I started the struggle, people said, 'Stop the noise, you are making people not come.' .
That is, an attitude of if I do not have me - who do I have?
"In our locality we are all armed. In the guard of the walls, when the riots started, we kept in pairs on every street. And yet, I'm not sorry I moved here, because there is the most amazing population here. Every evening for the other."
Beneath the surface in Carmit, there has been a tension in recent months.
Recently, 297 plots of land in the locality went out to tender, and more than 100 of them were won by Bedouins from the area.
Bedouin families are also moving to the prestigious Blades.
"They are citizens of Israel and they can buy houses," says Yossi Nissan, head of the Lehavim Council.
"Those who live here are not criminals, but it's definitely a sensitive issue. To tell you that all the residents are happy? No, Facebook is full of it."
Yossi Nachman from Carmit is much more blunt on the subject.
"This is our big fear, and legally there is nothing to do. Call me whatever they want, I will do whatever it takes to protect my home. We are trying legally to see what can be done in the next allotment of plots. It is possible to give 20 percent to the disabled, which gives us more air to breathe.
"People from Malkia say to me, 'Are you from Carmit? I bought a plot of land there.' By law, ten percent of the residents can demand the construction of a mosque. "They can make names in the locality."
Yossi Nachman.
"Ready to go", Photo: Efrat Eshel
Ahmed al-Assad, head of the Lakia council, is familiar with the phenomenon. "And to develop our localities. A strong population should remain, but their solution is easy. There are quite a few strong Bedouins who have a lot of money."
You can understand them. It is difficult to compare the localities: one is tidy and well-kept, the other less so.
"Although we have no parking and no landscaping, but believe me, behind the wall of the house there is a pearl that blades do not even approach."
It is not clear how the intensifying Bedouin-Jewish problem in the Negev can be solved, which is similar to two pieces of a puzzle that are losing their chances of integrating.
Cultural, economic and educational interest, with a long and complicated list of differences.
Only in recent days has a Jewish girl told on a Facebook page in one of the Negev communities about a difficult case she experienced.
According to her, in the center of the established community where she lives, a masked young man lay down on the crosswalk and waved goodbye to her, while she was on the train.
The young woman, realizing that he was blocking her passage, hurried back, and in a panic collided with a traffic sign.
According to her, four more young men suddenly went out and joined the young man.
After she managed to escape the scene, the agitated young woman wrote a post on Facebook, in which she demanded that someone lift the glove, otherwise a disaster would happen, as she defined it.
"My parents grew old at once from worry and stress," concludes Ben, the son of Aryeh Schiff.
"In the last year we have started to see the wrinkles on their faces, and my father does not sleep at night. He gets up several times at night, looks out the window, real post-trauma symptoms. He suffers from anger and depression and goes to psychiatric treatment, because beyond the traumatic event "The burden of human life is something that is contrary to its nature."
Ben says the family is not considering leaving Arad.
Lior Bar also does not dream of abandoning Omar, the locality where he lives.
"If need be, I'd rather die with my legs upright - than fall to my knees," says Barr.
I served in the reserve for more than 20 years.
I have no other country".
• • •
The Israel Police responded: "The police are waging a determined and uncompromising fight against serious crime in the area, and in particular against perpetrators of crime, bullying and violence, through a variety of units, forces and police measures. To thwart and investigate criminal cases while accompanying the State Attorney's Office.
"At the same time, the police are constantly working proactively and offensively against various criminal phenomena that harass and harm the residents of the area, on the overt and covert level, to locate and prosecute the perpetrators of crime wherever they are. Along with continued enforcement and deepening, My roots are deep beyond police enforcement.
"The Israel Police will continue the determined and uncompromising fight against weapons offenses, in the communities of Arab society and everywhere else, all in order to maintain public peace and security."
shishabat@israelhayom.co.il
