This week, Wala Ja'o, a young woman from um al Fahm in her mid-20s, was murdered while driving with her mother on Route 65. The police have opened an investigation into the circumstances of the case, of course, but reality proves that they will not be the last victims of the violence and crime that are rampant in Arab society.
For the past two years, a group of Arab women who have lost their children or spouses or relatives has been trying to organize and promote protest and information activities against the most dangerous phenomenon in the history of Arab society in Israel – criminal organizations and crime families. They held protest rallies, demonstrations and a protest march on foot from the north to Jerusalem, appeared before various Knesset committees, and even met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and senior officials in his ministry.
Many Arab women who joined this forum abandoned it and fled it following death threats. Direct and explicit threats. It is believed that Wala Ja'o also received death and family threats, and demands to stop her activities. But she insisted on continuing. Walla's activism began following the murder of eight members of her family over the past four years.
Criminal organizations not only threaten but also sustain. They know very well who is interfering with their activities and who might leave the issue on the agenda, and exert more and more pressure on the government and the police to continue their activity against the various terrorist organizations.
So far, criminal organizations and crime families have succeeded in their objectives more than the Israel Police, and certainly more than the Israeli government. The fact is that anyone who receives a threat – no matter which criminal organization – is ultimately harmed if he does not change his offensive line, and if he does not stop speaking out against the phenomenon of crime in Arab society.
We have already seen that many candidates for mayor of local authorities and companies in them have withdrawn their candidacy, not only because they are afraid but because they know that in times of trouble the security forces, the police and the Shin Bet cannot protect them in practice
The threats to the women's group are not isolated in the campaign. We are witnessing an increase in threats against candidates in municipal elections, and this comes down to an attempt to harm those candidates and even shootings. We have already seen that many candidates for mayor of local authorities and companies have withdrawn their candidacy, not only because they are afraid, but because they know that in times of trouble the security forces, the police and the Shin Bet cannot protect them in practice.
Organized crime – which can also manifest itself in a father and four of his sons who decide to start their own "organization" – does not only hit women, not just candidates for local authorities. It harms everywhere and in every area of Arab society, and we all know that a message from a person affiliated with a criminal organization – even if the message is conveyed pleasantly and even respectfully – is enough to cause a normative person to voluntarily withdraw his desire to bid for a tender or purchase a property.
The problem of crime will not disappear in the coming years, even if the Shin Bet gets into the thick of it, although it is doubtful whether it will do so. It will begin to disappear, or at least diminish, from the moment it is called "the problem of crime in Israel" rather than "the problem of crime in Arab society," that the government will internalize the magnitude of the threat, and most of all, that the Israel Police will be the police of all its citizens.
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