New religious Zionist police recruits
New religious Zionist police recruitsIsrael News photo: Yoni Kempinski

 

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said at Sunday's Cabinet session that police must enforce the law in Arab and other minority sectors just as they do in the Jewish sector. 

"There are not two states," the Prime Minister said. "There is no state within a state. We live in one state – the State of Israel is Jewish and democratic."

Using unusually emotional language, Netanyahu said: "I am crying out against the inegalitarian enforcement from both the positive angle – which necessitates making police services available – and from the aspect that requires stricter enforcement."

"There is a feeling in the public that the level of enforcement among these populaces is much lower. I am committed to change this. I demand equal enforcement in all parts of the state of Israel."

Netanyahu instructed the Minister of Public Security, Yitzchak Aharonovich, to come up with a plan for equalizing the level of enforcement in all sectors, as soon as possible. This is to be carried out in addition to the money set aside for education, infrastructure and health services in the minority sectors and to the Cabinet decision to pay 30 million shekels for providing security to educational institutions in the minority sectors.

It is a well-known fact in Israel that Arabs riot and ambush Jews regularly in various hotspots including eastern Jerusalem, and that police are loath to give chase, sometimes for fear that they will have to use violence and then face investigation and possible prosecution. Arab land encroachment and theft of goods and livestock, in addition to illegal building, plague the Negev and Galilee with little reaction from law enforcement agencies.

Netanyahu also gave instructions to meaningfully augment enforcement along the southern border in order to reduce the number of infiltrators, until the completion of a security barrier along the border.