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Good evening and welcome to On the Record, I24 News's in-depth interview show. As Israel approaches another round of elections, we will be dedicating some of the upcoming episodes to domestic issues that often get overlooked in a rapidly changing news cycle and don't make the headlines. Tonight's show will focus on Israel's Arab population that makes up over 20% of Israel's population, but has historically refused to be part of Israel's ruling coalition until recently. Deeply integrated in Israeli society, Arabs hold key positions in the public and private sectors, including becoming the backbone of the country's health care system, 30% of which are Arabs. And yet, many of their social problems have
largely been overlooked by decades of Israeli governments, both on the right and on the left. And so amid the upcoming elections and soaring violence in Arab communities to break down the current challenges and opportunities facing Israel's population and the Arab community. Today I'm joined by Jab. Jabin is a legal expert on Arab society, public law, and law enforcement, and has spent much time in Israel's Knesset committees as a strong advocate for issues regarding Arab society in Israel. He is the former director of Aman, the Arab Center for Safe Society, which advocates for government and social policies to tackle crime in Arab society. Mr. Jabin, thank you so much for joining the
Thank you for having me. Thank you. So, I want to start off with the growing epidemic, it's been called, of murders and killings in Arab society. According to the Abraham initiatives, 120 Arabs have been killed since the start of the year in crime and violence related incidents. This is a 20% rise from last year in this period. Now, broadly speaking, the ratio between murders among Arabs in Israel outnumbers Jews 14:1. How do you explain this? What's going on? Well, it's a objective reasons. U Arab society changed, socially changed, economically changed, um and politically changed for years. And these changes
you speak about the number of phrase of in the healthcare many doctors in academia we succeed in academia numbers of women in the academia Arab Palestinian women in academia is high rates but higher than their share in society. Okay. this progress there is um negative consequences for this and this there is a middle class okay but another people crashed in the ground of our of our society this uh negative things the state of Israel as a policy they didn't care about dealing with this we can succeed as a p persona as a person, the individuals. But as a society, the investment in our society is very low, then the result of this policy is not to deal with the negative things in our community. For example,
and the main example is the policing. In the past, we didn't have we don't have uh the need of uh of policing in our community. Okay, we are small communities very um the solidarity in our community is very high but this social changes change the reality now for the 10 15 years we need a police and the absence of the police all the time make the possibility of a small group a group of people to deal with crimes in our community, use violence in our community for getting money for drugs etc. And the state wasn't there. The police wasn't there. And result of this all this and dealing with the this reality we face now a number a huge number explosion of the crimes in our community. I want to add that there is a line when this government
right-wing extremist government now led by Ben in the issue of crime security minister after the this government the number is doubled uh because of the uh policy. It's not something imminent in our community. But uh you talk about years of neglect, but then you talk about a specific policy by this government that has led to this rise in crime. What are these policies that have led to the rise in crime which you also say are result of 15 years of social change? social change and state policy not to deal with our social problem, our social change in every aspect. Why aren't they dealing with it? It's the question of crimes. It's a question of citizenship. When you part of the state in the very deep uh
sense as a citizen then the state will allocate uh resources uh to deal with your uh daily life. Okay. in land issues, in infrastructure, in a uh education, in dealing with youth and youth problem, um employment problem. Okay? When the state exists in your life all the time, they can observe the negative things and they can deal with it. Okay? For years, the state as a policy didn't care about this. Okay? Mhm. But as an as I said as individual we can succeed in the academia in the medicine um field in another field. Okay. But as a community the investment in our community is very low and it's for years. So that's that's the top down failure.
The top down. But is there also a failure from the bottom up? I mean what responsibility do Arab leaders uh community leaders political leaders do they have bear any responsibility for the current situation of Arab society in Israel? Well I this is my analysis now that we um believe in our citizenship. Okay. Palestinians in Israel believe that this citizenship is something that matter to them. Okay. Then all the time we spend much more time and efforts to ask the state to do something in our issues. Okay? And sometimes for many of the times we forot to deal by our hands to solve our problem. Okay? Not to wait to the state to do something. So what is in the hands of the operators um many things for example the youth
problem I don't need the ministry of the education to deal I need minister of education but I don't need this ministry of education all the time I have power internal power in our community they can deal with some of these issues and we didn't do that do this example for the public arena public uh our public space okay we can do much by our uh selves without waiting to binge and another ministries to do something in our uh community building our communities back again and strengthening uh the ability of our people to deal with our problem without waiting to others. This is for me this is the main issue here that we can do and we didn't. So I want to bring it back to the soaring violence because you talked about the public space. Most of the
crimes of the murders occur in public space and 85% of murders in Arab society are carried out by firearms, by guns, most of which are illegal. Now, I've heard the notion that the problem is simply with the easy access to guns and if guns were taken away, if the police were to come and collect all the weapons, there wouldn't be the murders. Do you share that? This is a very crucial uh aspect the uh that our youth can have this uh weapons easily. This is main issue that make mortar is very uh close to do because in the past in our community when there is a disputes between two side okay maximum is doing stabbing or to throwing stones okay but when they factor of being um that you have uh weapons this change the reality Now we don't refuse
that the police as a civil faction deal with this by using technology of the shin and another faction in a security faction but to cross the line between seeing me seeing the Arab as a security threat and deal with this as a mentality of the state and this government. Okay. Now a right-wing government, we now can um cross the line and we maybe uh harm our citizenship among our community. Y we deal now with crimes but in the future this crossing line will harm our citizens. M. Now, briefly, is there a concern that these weapons will make their ways to actual terror organizations that hurt the security of Israel?
I think no. And this is the here what the right-wing in Israel. Yes. He uses a painful situation in our community. We want the state to collect all the weapons in our community. It is uh across the political uh parties in our community uh across communities. Everyone want the state to collect this weapons and we don't think that these weapons will threatening the Jewish community but some um of the public uh figure in Israel, Ben and others all the time want to threaten the Jewish sides from the Arab side by using uh something in their image. imagine that maybe this criminals cross the line to security um security threat. They don't want to solve the problem.
They want to exploit this problem for political gain. And this is what we want all the time for our uh Jewish friends and we are cooperating in this. We have to compare this in the level of civil level not to think about the to cross the line between security and civil life. So the way to solve this would be to basically change the government and the way to do that is through elections. And this brings me to the next main uh issue that I want us to discuss and that is the historical role or refusal on the part of Arab parties to participate in the ruling coalition um with the exception of the United Arab List Ram that chose
in 2021 to go with Benet. We're going to talk about that. Why not take part in the political game, meaning joining the coalition? I mean, an entire an eternity in the opposition doesn't serve the public as best as it could. I want to correct the this premise. Yes. that Arabs they uh start not to refuse to get in the uh coalitions in government in Israel. The refusal is from the um Zionist parties in Israel. They think at the time and now most of the Zionist parties that the time is not ready that Arab will interfere in a crucial um question in is in Israel security and the essence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state. then they refuse to bring Arabs Arab party in the in their coalition. But in 20 in 192
while the Rabin form his coalition, the Arab parties, two Arab parties, uh they give the um give Rabin back by voting in favor of his government. They recommended him to the president, but they didn't sit actively in the coalition. Yes, but they support this. But the question that in that time was a peace process. Then the Arabs in Israel want to um give back to the peace process. Now, and I'm I'm I'm trying to answer your question. Why not now from the Palestin the Arab side, not to get into the coalition? Because all the time the government deal with the occupation, they uh occupy territories. Uh there is um military actions, there is um actions
against our side of Palestinians, our people. Okay. Then when you enter the uh the government, your u uh collective responsibility will uh you will be responsible for the this uh um policy in the West Bank and then in the Gaza Strip. But let me press on this. Then the question here is not only uh um something that belong to us to the Palestinian here in Israel. The question is more bigger and then when you enter the coalition your responsibility to what happened to your people in the West Bank and Gaza is very high. So when Msurbas did join the coalition actively not support from the outside in 2021 you're saying that there was more of a shift in perspective on the part of Benet and Laid rather than Mansur Abbas
but in terms of the Arab population you had an Arab party in the coalition and the skies didn't fall. This is the moment where Mansur Bennett and Laid signed joining the coalition. I think a historic moment in the political annals of Israel. But you're saying that for the average Israeli Arab who may even selfidentify as a Palestinian Israeli, this makes it an impossible situation. But again, the skies didn't fall for Arab-Israelis. And some might say that having a figure like Msurbas in the coalition improved their lives better or normalized the participation of Arabs in the political game in Israel. And so when you have now Napali Bennett saying there will be no uh Arab parties in the
coalition and all the Zionist parties saying only Zionist parties. Does that mean that this experiment failed? No, I don't think that this failed. But the Arab community now divided in this issue and there is a um a huge amount of Arab Palestinian here in Israel think that this time is the time to um to get away this uh specific government. Then to enter the coalition is our way not only to improve our situation to deal with crimes and another issue but also to um uh to end this era uh that the right-wing extremist white right wing form the coalition in the other side still many of Palestinians in Israel remember what happened in Gaza, what happened now in the West Bank and what settlers uh doing now in the
West Bank. And then it's it's not easy to be part of the coalition. Okay. in the promise of who will form this uh coalition that he is from the right wing and this um he will conduct not the same thing but he will continue the occupation. Yeah. Look this I now I put the two side in the divide public opinion in our community. But I for me I think that now we can support as we did in the in uh 192. Okay. not to be part of the responsibility in the uh in the government, but to support any political change in Israel because if now the uh parties the opposition in Israel, form the uh coalition, there is for us as a Palestinian, there is no any alternative political alternative there political alternative is the returning
of the right-wing to the to power. Then now in this moment of political uh situation, we don't have any choice rather than to support this part of the politic political parties in Israel. Mhm. So you're saying the ideal solution for you is return to the 1992 model of rabin support from the outside rather than the mansurbasal model of trying to influence from within. One thing is a very important and deep thing [snorts] that I don't want that Arab will they will interfere in the disputes between uh the Jewish side. Okay, this sometimes the Jewish side must decide in which side they want peace or want war. They want liberal
democracy or they want dictatorship. Okay. This is a question uh in the public Jewish public not in the Arab public. But when it consu uh for our rights because if we interfere in the Israeli Zionist Jewish uh politics in that way then maybe we put ourselves in danger. Mhm. because the right wing is very um militant and very um the violent now and I it's supposed to be more violent in the future. I think the Arab population is also going to need to make a hard choice between issues. But we have to move on to the last part of the show. That's the rapid fire segment. I'm going to show you three pictures and you tell me the
first thing that comes to mind. So this is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the election campaign in 2021 meeting with Bedawin leaders in the negative. Abu Yer he called himself Abu Yer um liar. Mhm. All right. That's a very heavy word. Uh let's move on to the next uh picture. This is the joint Arab lists uh in the party headquarters in 2020 after reaching the record achievement of 15 seats in the Knesset. They chose to remain outside the coalition. This is um an a very important moment in our political uh political life but still uh something occur there and they miss um the historical moment to change our reality.
Mhm. All right. And the last picture this is from January of this year. These are the leaders of the four main Arab parties in Sakin uh signing an agreement to work to reestablish the joint list. The joint list hasn't yet been reestablished. I think there's a picture of hope because the um this picture taken after the demonstration uh in Saknin and the issue was the uh criminal act there in Saknin. And then the public under pressure of the public u they um want to make uh sure that the they going to the uh to unity and this is the demand of the people to shut yes or no is there going to be a joint terror list in upcoming elections yes or no that's all we have time for I have doubts about this
all right we're gonna have to leave it there I want to thank you again Jab for your time joining us this evening. Thank you uh for having me. Thank you. Please join us again next week here at On the Record. You can find today's episode and all previous shows on YouTube and Spotify. Thank you for watching.
