The feeling on the street is that the disproportionate violence afflicting Arab communities is the result of deliberate police neglect. Adding to their sense of powerlessness, Ms. Freij’s husband, Mohammed, is the deputy mayor of Kafr Qasim, an Arab town of 22,000 in Israel. Mr. Erdan said 60 percent of Israel’s murders occurred in Arab communities, triple the Arab proportion of the population, along with more than 40 percent of traffic accidents. So the police created special prep courses for potential recruits, including intensive Hebrew lessons, like the one that Mr. Hreib, Mr. Ghadeer, Mr. Huwari, and Mr. Hassanein took this summer. As the influence of such elders eroded in modernizing communities, some, like Kafr Qasim, organized their own security patrols.

Source: New York Times September 03, 2016 18:11 UTC