Bedouins say Israeli police ignoring violence in their communities
Some characterize the Negev as the Wild West because of the lack of law enforcement.
On June 2, a disturbing recording from an incident at the military training base Tzeelim in the south of Israel was made public. Bedouin youth who were suspected of stealing munitions threatened the reserve soldiers who chased them.
Anyone who is familiar with the situation in the south knows that this incident is part of the daily life of residents, a situation where a small segment of Bedouin youth has adopted crime and violence as a lifestyle, pure and simple. The truth is that quite a few times in the past, Bedouin youth have been documented firing guns in public, even if this is supposedly “celebratory shooting” following a wedding, and behaving as if there’s no law and no judge.
We should note that we must in no way stain a whole community because of a handful of lawbreakers who see violence as a lifestyle and livelihood. But every law-abiding Bedouin citizen in the Negev wonders why violence reaches the headlines and the public agenda only when it is aimed at military bases or Jews. Where is the police responsible for enforcing the law?
“I would call it approval by silence,” declared Nuzaha Alassad Alhuzail, a social worker and lecturer at Sapir College, in conversation with Al-Monitor. “Only a few weeks ago when there was gunfire toward police officers, we saw tons of forces in the town that searched every house and in the end they made arrests. Law enforcement authorities try to depict the situation [of minimum intervention] under the umbrella of cultural sensitivity; they tend not to intervene. And so, we get to the point where people shoot at each other.”
