Murders in Arab society are breaking records. Every day brings with it another murder incident.
In addition to the activity of the law enforcement systems to combat violence, long-term in-depth measures must be taken that will improve the overall life system of Arab society.
In a recent discussion of the Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women on the issue of employment of Arab women, it emerged that about 30% of recipients of income support benefits from the National Insurance Institute are Arab women. We are talking about 15,<> Arab and Bedouin women. This is a crying out indicator of the employment shortage in the Arab population, and it has implications for the scope of crime and violence.
As of 2022, the employment rate among Arab women stands at 42%, compared to 83% among Jewish women. Among Bedouin women, the rate of employed women is even lower: about 25 per cent. This leads to 80 per cent of Bedouin children in the Negev living in poverty, leading to gaps, frustration and ease of sliding into crime.
Arab and Bedouin women face many barriers, some of them social-educational, such as gaps in education and proficiency in the Hebrew language and characteristics of a traditional patriarchal society. However, the structural-infrastructural barriers for which the state is responsible are central to preventing their integration into the labor market: the lack of sufficient supply of childcare frameworks, the poor level of public transportation services, and the scarcity of employment in Arab localities.
Over the past decade, Israeli governments have advanced 14 resolutions relating to the socioeconomic advancement of the Arab population, some of them in multi-year five-year plans. This is minimal to no implementation of the plans on the ground.
The Bedouin population in the Negev numbers about 300,19 people and suffers from a shortage of bus stops, frequency of arrival and routes. Added to this is the problem of the lack of childcare frameworks, which do not allow women to go out to work. In the entire Negev, there are only <> daycare centers for children. These prevent women from going out to work and improving their economic situation.
In addition, the Negev has only one employment bureau. The addition of employment bureaus adapted to language and culture will help make services and information accessible in the process of integration into the labor market. Improving internet infrastructure in Arab and Bedouin communities in the south is also important. The lack of digital skills is particularly pronounced among Bedouin women – 86% of Bedouin women who require work lack basic digital skills.
There are no magic solutions; rather, there is a need for orderly, long-term work plans that will improve the situation of women and men in Arab and Bedouin society. The more the state succeeds in expanding the scope of employment of the Arab public, particularly that of women, the better the economy of Arab cities and towns will be. Maximizing the economic potential contributes to reducing feelings of alienation and hostility. From here, there is a short way to improve the quality of life and strengthen resilience in all centers of the Arab population. These will help reduce violence as well.
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