Israel is taking steps towards over-policing and increasing its surveillance of the Palestinian population inside its 1949-borders under the pretext of curbing the high crime rate within the community, Palestinians say.
In the latest measure, the Israeli cabinet approved a proposal on Sunday granting police with what Palestinians view as overly broad powers \u2013 allowing them to freely search homes without a court warrant \u2013 \u201cif they think they can find a suspect or evidence related to a serious crime\u201d, according to Israeli media.
The bill, proposed by minister Gideon Saar, comes after a government decision last month to deploy the internal Israeli intelligence service, known as Shabak or Shin Bet, in Palestinian towns and villages as part of its \u201cnational fight against crime\u201d.
With the cabinet\u2019s support, the bill will be voted on in the Israeli parliament \u2013 the Knesset \u2013 before becoming a law. It is not yet clear whether the proposal will get a majority vote.
Hassan Jabareen, founder and director of Adalah, the main Palestinian legal defence organisation inside Israel, said the bill will give police the pretext to search any Palestinian home.
\u201cIn practice, they will be able to go into the majority of Arab homes, because in every [Arab] neighbourhood and town, there are shootings and killings,\u201d Hassan told Al Jazeera. \u201cIt\u2019s enough for them to be suspicious to do so.\u201d
He said it means there would be \u201cno judicial supervision\u201d over the operation of entering into homes, which \u201cstrips homes of their sanctity\u201d.
\u201cThis will allow the police to even enter homes and use them for manoeuvering, for example, if they are suspicious of the house next door,\u201d continued Hassan.
\u201cWe are going from under-policing to over-policing \u2013 one extreme to another,\u201d adding the new legislation could be used to \u201cterrorise people\u201d, particularly during times of protest.
Awad Abdelfattah, a political writer and former general-secretary of the National Democratic Alliance party, said it \u201ccreates a state of tension\u201d for Palestinians.
\u201cIt will restrict our freedoms and put us under more surveillance,\u201d he told Al Jazeera from the town of Kawkab near Haifa.
Last week, Israeli officials also advanced a plan to permit administrative detention against the community, a policy used by the Israeli occupation army in the West Bank which allows them to detain Palestinians indefinitely without trial or charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Cheap method of control\u2019 \u2018Police collusion\u2019 \u2018Angry generation\u2019 Israel is taking steps towards over-policing and increasing its surveillance of the Palestinian population inside its 1949-borders under the pretext of curbing the high crime rate within the community, Palestinians say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":12535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
<\/strong>During the past decade, the issue of crime and homicides has plagued the Palestinian community inside Israel, referred to as the \u201c1948-occupied territories\u201d or the \u201coccupied interior\u201d by Palestinians.
The number of killings has risen dramatically over the past few years. So far in 2021, more than 100 Palestinians have been killed in homicides, surpassing last year\u2019s total of 97. In 2013, there were 53 killings.
On Monday morning, Salim Hasarmah, 44, was killed in a shooting in the town of al-Bi\u2019neh east of Akka. Less than 24 hours later, 25-year-old Khalil Abu Je\u2019o was killed in Umm al Fahm, northwest of Jenin.
While Israel opened a large number of police stations in and around Palestinian towns during and following the Second Intifada in 2000, shootings have mushroomed during the last decade, with the vast majority of cases going unsolved.
Historic mass protests and confrontations with police broke out in March 2021 in the focal town of Umm al-Fahm, against police indifference, and against what Palestinians say is Israel\u2019s investment in the endurance of crime within the community to weaken it, and collusion with criminal gangs.
Abdelfattah said Israel is using internal violence as a \u201ccheap method\u201d to exert control over Palestinians.
\u201cInternal violence in the \u201948-occupied areas is the result of colonial violence and colonial policies that created all the social, cultural and economic conditions to block the path, the horizon, and hope, for Palestinians, until they turn against themselves,\u201d said Abdelfattah.
Rights groups have long documented the struggle of Palestinians in Israel, who number 1.8 million. In addition to Israel\u2019s efforts to suppress their Palestinian identity over the years, the majority live in densely populated towns and with little access to land and resources \u2013 most of which were seized during and after 1948 for Jewish settlers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Mohammad Taher Jabareen, one of the founders of the United Umm al-Fahm Hirak (movement), the main group to organise protests, said killings began to spread in the town following the opening of a police station in 2003.
\u201cThe crime and killings increased with the opening of police stations,\u201d Mohammad told Al Jazeera.
\u201cSome 100 metres away from the police station, there would be killings, and it is never investigated, and no one held accountable. The police are the ones who provide opportunities for people to carry out crimes, and turn a blind eye to them.\u201d
Mohammad said \u201cpolice corruption\u201d and the Shin Bet are the \u201cmain feeders of organised crime and violence\u201d.
\u201cThe majority of weapons come from Israeli police and army storage units,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cpolice officers were found to take bribes from crime groups in Umm al-Fahm\u201d.
\u201cHow do they claim they are the strongest state, security-wise, when they claim they cannot figure out where the weapons are coming from?\u201d he asked. \u201cThey know that these weapons are coming from their own storage rooms and are being sold in the Arab community.
\u201cWhen problems happen in the Arab community, that means it is criminal. When it\u2019s related to Jews, it\u2019s always security,\u201d added Mohammad.
In 2016, Israeli officials said 90 percent of illegal firearms originated from the army.
On August 11, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet announced the establishment of a \u201cMinisterial Committee on Fighting Crime and Violence in the Arab Sector,\u201d as part of a \u201cnational plan\u201d to \u201cwage an unceasing, constant and persistent fight, with full force, against crime and violence\u201d.
Under the plan, steps laid out include increasing police presence in Palestinian towns, as well as \u201cstrengthening intelligence and investigation capabilities\u201d, expanding the \u201clegal toolkit\u201d using \u201cadvanced technological means in support of enforcement and prevention efforts\u201d, and \u201cadvancing legislation on the issue\u201d.
Two new police stations will also be opened among Palestinian towns in the northern Marj Ibn Amer area, and in the coastal Palestinian town of Jisr az-Zarqa, as well as among Palestinian Bedouin communities in the Naqab desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Following the recent decision to involve the Shin Bet in the crime problem, Adalah submitted a petition calling it \u201cillegal\u201d and a \u201cdirect continuation of military rule\u201d, in reference to the period between 1948 and 1966 under which Palestinians in Israel lived under harsh military control.
Adalah argued it \u201ccreates two separate law-enforcement systems \u2013 one for Palestinian Arab towns, neighbourhoods, and citizens, and the other for the rest of the country\u201d. It also \u201cintroduces the Shin Bet into a civilian space, where they have no legal authority\u201d.
Abdelfattah described the Shin Bet as \u201cone of the most powerful and dangerous devices of repression since 1948\u201d, and said it pervades the Palestinian community inside Israel.
He said he is surveilled himself and was arrested from his home and taken for questioning on multiple occasions on the basis of \u201cinciting against the state\u201d \u2013 but never formally charged. He was also terminated from three workplaces.
\u201cThey are increasing surveillance and pressure on us, while weakening us politically to get us to leave the country voluntarily,\u201d said Abdelfattah.
Despite the new measures, he said, \u201cviolence gives birth to counter-violence\u201d.
\u201cIn the last popular outburst in May \u2013 the 1948-occupied areas played a major role. There is a young, angry generation, that is growing in awareness, that will not stay silent.\u201d
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"