By Gershon Hacohen

The Israeli government recently approved a new plan for fighting rampant crime in the Arab-Israeli sector, but this plan is just the latest example of a refusal by the state to recognize the deep structural issues behind the problem.

At a superficial level, the problem is violent crime, and the requisite solution would be to battle inequality, as well as treating the phenomenon as a crime problem only.

In reality, the criminal patterns on display are deeply intertwined with nationalistic sentiments that reject the sovereignty of Israel as a Jewish state.

Between the lines, it is this sentiment that guided several Arab-Israeli Knesset Members to reject an initiative to send in the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) into the Arab sector to take on crime.

But if the police alone face the problem, it is doomed to fail, as police lack the critical mass of personnel required to focus on crime hotspots.

Sufficiently massing forces, and persistence, are the twin tools needed to truly begin lowering crime levels in the Arab-Israeli sector. A lack of either will guarantee mission failure.

Part of the blindness to the problem stems from the idea that all problems in human societies are universal and all people are the same. But such wishful philosophies should be replaced with more accurate theories, such as the one proposed by the American Jewish thinker Daniel Goldhagen, who clearly grasps that particular issues affect particular people, and that not all afflictions are universal. Societies also have differing wishes and expectations.

When dealing with human action, it is essential to always ask what the overall rationale is, unlike the analysis of natural phenomenon, which can be explained purely through a break-down of unintentional processes.

Those who cling to universalist explanations will not be able to drill down to the real motivations behind crises faced by different societies.

While the idea of improving socio-economic conditions in parts of the Arab Israeli sector is a legitimate goal, it is not an adequate explanation for the spiraling levels of violence. Nor can merely ‘bringing in professionals’ to diagnose socio-economic ills and prescribe remedies seriously change the situation.

Rather, Israel must do as the French philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, recommends, and to ‘love others as they are different.’

This means recognizing the ‘otherness’ and responding to it in policies designed to deal with cultural uniqueness, rather than universalism.

In light of the above, throwing more money at the problem of violent crime is ignoring the rationale being manifested through widespread lawless behavior.

That rationale is a religious-nationalist undercurrent that rejects the very sovereignty of the Israeli state.

Failing to recognize and respond to this emerging phenomenon will result in a further loss of control.

In 1976, after the first Land Day, in which Arab Israelis held demonstrations and disturbances, and clashed with security forces, resulting in six people killed, former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin set up a committee of inquiry.

He later accepted that inquiry’s recommendations to improve Arab civil rights – a worthy goal in and of itself - but he also stressed that what the state is offering is a fostering of religious-cultural existence – not a separate ethnic-national Palestinian entity within the Jewish state.

Rabin’s clarity on that matter must guide Israel today as it deals with raging violent crime in the Arab sector.

While the vast majority of victims of Arab crime are themselves Arab-Israelis, the drug dealer who feels he can open fire in a drive-by shooting acts with immunity because he has the backing of his family and clan. Even if the gunman’s family goes on to fear him, they initially enabled him to act because his crimes were perceived as a chipping away of sovereignty.

The power projection and ‘respect’ placed on violent criminals goes hand in hand with a perception that the Jewish state should not be applying its sovereignty.

As a result, we have today reached a situation in which special police units have to accompany the Tax Authority when it collects taxes. Once sovereignty fails to be applied, the meaning is clear: Sovereignty has been lost.

This is visible in the Negev and the Galilee in the most explicit manner. It is also why criminal guns were turned against Jews during the May escalation with Hamas in Gaza.

This then is the underlying structure fueling the violence within Israel.

There is no doubt that many Arab Israeli citizens are actively asking the state for help, and many are suffering greatly from the crime raging in their communities.

But helping them – and the state – means recognizing that the criminals are operating with substantial nationalistic-religious baggage as well.

Understanding this will enable the state to win the campaign. Israel has no option but to activate force – in a moderate and selective manner – by focusing large-scale deployments on violent hotspots. 

In recent days, the government announced that it would send two Border Police battalions – around 1,000 personnel – to the Negev to deal with Bedouin crime issues. When I was commander of the Gaza disengagement, I focused 20,000 security forces on the Nave Dekalim Jewish community which was being evacuated, an area the size of one neighborhood in Beersheba, and the entire disengagement ended within five days without a single casualty.

This is the advantage created by injecting a critical mass of forces. When dealing with national events, sending in inadequate forces can create dangerous situations that actually increase the chance that deadly force would be required.

Large forces, on the other hand, accomplish just the opposite, enabling greater control.  

Persistence and the deployment of large-scale forces are therefore the basic conditions needed to restore Israeli sovereignty and to really bring down violent crime that is plaguing the Arab-Israeli sector today.  

Major General Gershon Hacohen served as Commander of the Northern Corps of the IDF. He previously held various positions, including Commander of the IDF Colleges, Head of Training & Doctrine Division in the General Staff, Reserve Division Commander of the Northern Command and Commander of the 7th Brigade of the IDF Armor Division. Read full bio here.