MK Yulia Malinovski
MK Yulia MalinovskiIsrael Beitenu

After a thorough examination of data provided to the Knesset by Israeli Police two months ago about Arab sexual terrorism against Jews, MK Yulia Malinovski (Israel Beitenu) concluded that police lied to lawmakers.

The Shin Bet, for its part, ignores the phenomenon, Malinovski accused.

"I am troubled that the Israeli police distorted data when they claimed there has been a reduction of incidence," said Malinovski. "From data later provided by the police themselves it turns out that this simply is not true. Also, it is strange to me that the Shin Bet does not recognize the phenomenon and has no data on the subject."

In response to a letter sent by the MK to the head of the Shin Bet requesting data on the extent of racially motivated sexual crime, a letter was received from the public relations department of the Prime Minister's office stating that the Shin Bet "does not at all recognize the phenomenon" of "sexual terrorism."

MK Malinovski plans to assemble another hearing soon in the Internal Affairs Committee, and is now convinced that the police and the Shin Bet deliberately ignore this phenomenon and consciously deny it.

Deliberately ambiguous data

Malinovski is not discouraged, however, and in recent days sent letters to the commanders of the police districts around the country and the Freedom of Information Commissioner of the Israel Police with a request to receive detailed information about the extent of sexual crime against Jewish and non-Jewish women.

During committee hearings on the Status of Women on December 13, a police representative, Chief Superintendent Ayelet Orenstein, said that the phenomenon of sexual assaults by Arabs is declining, but she could not provide any data whatsoever to support her claim.

The website Mida checked the data provided to MK Malinovski by the Minister of Internal Security in the weeks since that conference, and concluded that "the police make manipulative use of data, launder definitions and terms, and even botch simple mathematical calculations, in what appears to be a determined attempt not to get to the truth on the issue of racially motivated sexual violence.

"Conversations with Israeli Police officials show that the fuzzy data about nationalistic sexual crime is probably the result of deliberate policy", accused the site. "A police source told us that the organization consciously avoids breakdown of sexual offenses by ethnicity of non-Jewish attackers (Palestinian, infiltrator, etc.), in order 'not to tag populations'."

Distorting the numbers to Jew's disadvantage

Police statistics indicate that in a national cross-section, the total of sexual offenses perpetrated by non-Jews against Jewish women remained stable for the last seven years, and that there has been no downward trend. According to the data, in 2010 there were 492 sex crimes in Israel by non-Jews against Jewish women, whereas in 2016 there were 491 such cases.

Mida stated that although police broke down the data according to attacker's identity (Jew/non-Jew), but did not according to the identity of the victim (Jewish/non-Jewish woman). The partial data do not allow to trace the extent of sexual crime against Jewish women by non-Jewish men in mixed-population cities.

In addition, noted writer Gilad Tzovik, the police decided to classify the city of Tel Aviv-Yafo as a "mixed city", adding it to the list of six cities around which the Knesset debate revolved: Haifa, Jerusalem, Acre, Natzeret-Illit, Ramle, and Lod. Since the rate of non-Jews in Tel Aviv (including Jaffa) stood at only 4.2 percent, the inclusion of Tel Aviv within sexual crime statistics of all sexual offenses in "mixed cities" distorts the image provided by the data to the detriment of the general Jewish population."