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May. 6, 2021 3:49 PM
You’re active in the struggle against violence among Israel’s Arab population. The situation was never simple, but in the past few months there seems to be a downward spiral.
It’s been intensifying in the past few months – every week there are more and more people murdered – but the spiral started two years ago. We keep thinking we’ve reached a record number, and then another record is broken. We came out of 2020 with 113 people killed. This year we’re already at 34, and we’re still early in the year. In Deir al-Asad, there were two murders on the same day. In Baka al-Garbiyeh two brothers were murdered in their car. For the crime organizations, it no longer matters whether the victim is the person they were looking for, someone who’s with that person or just a passerby. They shoot anyone in the vicinity. In the past, women were considered a red line: No one dared to gun down women. Today I know, regrettably, that many of the murders in the Arab society weren’t committed for reasons of gender – which is an appalling tale in itself – but were criminal in nature.