#Arab_lives_matter Campaign Brings Attention to Violence Plaguing Israel’s Arab Sector

For Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel, perhaps the most pressing issue on the public agenda is reducing the violence that has ravaged their community. Since the beginning of 2021, nearly 100 Arab Israeli citizens have been murdered in Israel. The hashtag #Arab_lives_matter, inspired by the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the US, has caught on among social activists, lawmakers and ordinary citizens who want to draw attention to the problem and discuss solutions on social media. But while some BLM activists have tried to draw parallels between their struggle in the US and that of the Palestinians’ in the West Bank and Gaza, and sometimes in Israel, itself, most Arab Israelis aren’t calling to defund the Israeli police. Quite the opposite. These killings in their community are not generally at the hands of Israeli security forces; most involve Arab citizens killing other Arab citizens, often over family feuds or because of organized crime. The majority of the Arab population in Israel is looking for greater police involvement, not less, even though the community largely mistrusts the police. Among the most controversial proposals is one that would give new crime-fighting responsibilities to the powerful, secretive Shin Bet security agency – which until now concentrated on fighting terrorism and infiltrating extremist groups, both Palestinian and Jewish, in the West Bank. The Media Line’s Keren Setton brings the story.