The Knesset Committee for the Status of Women and Gender Equality held a meeting Tuesday to discuss incidents of sexual harassment by Arabs in mixed Arab-Jewish towns. MK Oded Forer (Yisrael Beytenu) declared that "nationalistically motivated sexual harassment-is an act of terror."
MK Julia Malinowski, also a member of Yisrael Beiteinu, who initiated the meeting revealed that Jewish women had told her they were scared to go out at night in mixed Arab-Jewish towns. "Some of them were harassed by Arabs when walking their dogs, some when they were returning home from entertaiment centers and some when they went to throw away their garbage."
She related that Jewish schoolgirls in Jerusalem had told her that they were afraid to walk around in various parts of the town due to fear of harassment by Arabs.
A police representative who spoke at the meeting said that there is a drop in the number of complaints about nationalistically-motivated sexual harassment in mixed Arab-Jewish towns but despite requests from a number of the Knesset members present, she was not able to provide concrete data about the situation in the various towns.