Minorities and Murder

By Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D
Ira Sharansky

JERUSALEM — Israeli media have focused on the case of  Rabab Abu Siam, an Arab woman, recently divorced, who was shot to death near her home in the city of Lod. She had been warned by police, who urged her to relocate. She did, but returned home to visit her three children.

Her former husband and his relatives are among the suspects. However, the police seem to be acting with extreme caution. So far no arrests.

Looking at the case more broadly, it reflects a much higher incidence of murder within the Arab community of Israel than among Jews. Recent data show that 64 Arabs have been killed so far this year, compared to 21 Jews.

And the picture is not all that different from the Black vs. White cases in the United States. Data from the U.S. Department of Justice shows 3.3 incidences per 100,000 people among Whites, and 20.6 per 100,000 among Blacks.

What’s the cause? Undoubtedly some of the difference is attributed to economic traits. There’s more violence and crowding among the poor. But there also seems to be a cultural factor, involving not only the perpetrators but also the police.

Israeli Arabs and American Blacks seem more inclined to violence than Jews and Whites. And the police are less inclined to work against illegal weapons and whatever else contributes to the ethnic-racial differences in crime.

According to a report in Ha’aretz, “The police have helped solve only 23 percent of the murders in the Arab Israeli community this year, compared with 71 percent for the Jewish community.”

Periodically there is a police sweep of Arab communities in order to seize illegal weapons. But just as routine are reports of IDF soldiers stealing weapons and selling them to Arabs.

Are there solutions for the ethnic-racial differences in crime? Or are they among the unpleasant realities that we have to live with?

There’s some indication in the historical data from the U.S. Department of Justice that murder rates by race have declined since the 1970s. Murder ofenders by race were 4.9 per 100,000 among Whites and 46.6 per 100,000 among Black in 1976, and 3.5 among Whites per 100,000 and 26.5 among Blacks per 100,000 in 2005. In both cases, the decline has been gradual from the 1970s to the recent year.

Data from Israel show higher rates of murder among Arabs, but lower rates of reported proptery crimes among Arabs than among Jews.

Perhaps there is more to steal among the Jews, or a greater tendency to report property crimes than among Arabs.

It ain’t fun being a member of a minority group. Crime is only one of the issues. Police involvement is another. An impression is that better-off Blacks and Israeli Arabs are more likely than majority equivalents to dress well, most likely to differentiate themselves when driving or otherwise being open to police inquiries.

With all that we hear about Arab terror against Jews, and some about Jews against Arabs, the data show that virtually all of the Arab deaths from murder in Israel result from Arab against Arab. Family and neighborhood squabbles go on for several rounds of killing. It’s more personal, Arab in-group vs Arab out-group, and family-structured than anything like inter-ethnic conflict. There is some inter-ethnic conflict, but generally it doesn’t result in killing. Sometimes it does, resulting in counter-action and other killings or injuries by the security forces. But that’s a small part of the total.

In a more recent case, a week later than the one that began this note, also  in Lod, the police warned a divorced Arab mother of four about a severe threat against her life. The police urged her to relocate in order to protect herself. She refused, and the police–backed up by a judge’s decision–proceeded to relocate her despite her reluctance. She opposes the action, with the help of an attorney. The judge delayed the enforcement of his order to give the woman the opportunity to appeal to a higher court. The higher court sent the case back to the original court. We’ll see how this pans out.
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Ira Sharkansky, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University. He may be contacted via ira.sharkansky@sdjewishworld.com