"As long as it's in their village, it's their problem." This is what a dear friend told me after the Yafia massacre, which raised the number of victims in the Arab sector to the threshold of 100 since the beginning of the year. By the end of the week, we had passed this bitter destination.
"Their problem". So do most of Israel's Jewish residents. "Family honor" (murder in which there is no honor), settling accounts, blood revenge. It flows through their culture. Here, the fact is, they say, with us Jews, this is not happening. Certainly not on this scale.
Dry statistics, first. 102 victims in less than six months, up from 115 in all of 2022. The previous figure was also horrifying, but the big leap only illustrates: If anyone has the illusion that it is not spilling over into Israeli society as a whole, he is mistaken. In 2022, the number of murders in Jewish society stood at 34. Since the beginning of the year, 25 men and women have been murdered. Let no one say that violence does not affect society as a whole.
Naturally, they complain first of all to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. They claim that it does not work enough, beyond statements and rants. That his approach makes the problem worse, not solves it. A series of former police commissioners and extras sent a letter on Friday demanding that the prime minister be removed from his post. "Minister Ben-Gvir, sitting in the chair of the Minister of National Security, constitutes a tangible and immediate danger to the security of the State of Israel," it said.
The claim is that while in the previous government an administration was established, and Deputy Minister Segalovich was authorized to manage the incident and also succeeded in reducing the number of murdered, in the current government the administration does not operate, there is no deputy minister in charge of the issue, and the commissioner who headed the CIF division announced his retirement from the police. Arab society claims that because the minister is not in favor of them, he doesn't really care if they murder each other.
These are significant allegations, but it is also too easy and convenient to point only to him as guilty, even if there are suitable ones from him for the job. Israeli society as a whole needs to mobilize. Hundreds of thousands are fighting like lions for fear of damage to democracy, but for the tragedy that afflicts more than 20 percent of Israeli society, they do not take to the streets. I previously wrote in this column that I visited the village of Barta'a. An Israeli Arab village near the city of Harish, and I hardly encountered any Hebrew speakers. Finally, a young woman who spoke fluent Hebrew was found, who explained to me: "We just don't need you. We live in a kind of economy that satisfies all its needs. Studies at the school take place in Arabic, which is our mother tongue, and we have no friction with Jewish society."
This must be changed. This requires leadership that recognizes violence in Arab society as an urgent national problem, from the prime minister to the last mayor and Arab council, in cooperation with the local government center. Beyond enforcement and the fight against criminal organizations and illegal weapons, huge budgets must be invested in education and infrastructure. And start with early childhood education. To teach Hebrew from kindergarten in Arab educational institutions, and Arabic in Jewish society. Lower the walls between the two populations. To educate about the value of gender equality, and to improve infrastructures in which not a penny has been invested in years.
It will take several years, but the price is equal and bound by reality. Because it's not Ben-Gvir, it's the life of all of us.
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