Police Commissioner Lt-Gen David Cohen said Tuesday that Arab citizens of Israel are involved in violent crime at a rate that is greater than their proportion in the general population, and the problem is growing steadily worse.
"We are marking a decade since the October Riots,” Cohen said, in reference to the widespread rioting by Arab citizens at the onset of the terror war known as “The Second Intifada” or “The Oslo War” in 2000. “The growing involvement of Israel's Arabs in violent crime, on a scale that is beyond their representation in the population – is getting worse and worse,” he said, at an annual event held by the Israel Police's Jerusalem District. “The implementation of the Orr Committee's recommendations is of critical importance,” he said.
The Orr Committee, which looked into the police's handling of the October Riots and the deaths of 13 rioters, took punitive steps against senior police officers and recommended that Arab grievances against the Jewish state be addressed, while calling for more funding for training and equipping police to control riots without using lethal force.
“We are now acting to increase communication and cooperation with the Arab sector,” Cohen said, “and also to create police centers; and together with the Ministry for Public Security we are developing an organized plan for dealing with the current gaps.”