The Mukhtar

Last week I mentioned how the old-timers at breakfast in the kibbutz dining room were only too willing to explain what went wrong at the Egyptian border on the 2^nd of June when three Israeli soldiers were killed by an Egyptian border policeman. Reluctant to draw hasty conclusions I said I prefer to wait till the IDF publishes its official report, adding, “There will be no whitewashing or coverups. If there were operational failings the public has the right to know what happened. I’m confident they will be rectified.”

This week the chief of the IDF’s Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano, and the commander of the 80th Division, Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen conducted a thorough investigation of the incident and presented their findings to IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi. The faults detailed in the report were mainly command-level operational failings. Following the investigation three senior commanders will be reprimanded, one will be dismissed from active service, others will be demoted and transferred to other units.

My breakfast table companions were satisfied with the report’s findings and recommendations.

Last week I also wrote about the worrying increase in the number of murders committed in Israeli Arab communities.

There was a time, within living memory, when the rule of law was mandatory in Arab rural communities. Regulating daily life during the Ottoman period was conducted by means of the Mukhtar, a salaried government-appointed official who was responsible for collecting taxes and maintaining law and order, usually by mediating in minor disputes in his village.   He was also responsible for registering births, marriages and deaths, and recruiting for the Ottoman army.

Shibley Ayoub Telhami (1868 - 1940)  Mukhtar of Isfiya, near Haifa

During the British Mandate in Palestine, the Mukhtar was divested of much of his authority.   Nevertheless, his position as nominal head of the village remained unchanged. However, the Jewish rural communities usually managed well without a Mukhtar. But in some instances, it was necessary to appoint someone to represent them in dealings with their Arab neighbours.

Today the village Mukhtar is very much a relic of the past, but then, I really don’t know. When I visited Daburiyya two years ago I didn’t think it prudent to ask.

Daburriya gained local council status in 1961 In 2021 it had a population of 10,782. I’m inclined to conclude that the local council body has replaced the Mukhtar. Daburriya is typical of many small villages and hamlets that have grown considerably and are now small towns.

In 1596 Daburiyya appeared in the Ottoman tax registers as a hamlet of 40 households and 3 bachelors, all Muslim. They paid a fixed tax rate of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat and barley, fruit trees, cotton, as well as on goats and/or beehives.

Here is another example: - Issawiya is a Palestinian neighbourhood in East Jerusalem. It is located on the eastern slopes of the Mount Scopus ridge. In a survey conducted in 2016 there were 16,000 residents in the town. In the 1596 Ottoman tax registers it had a population of 35 households and 3 bachelors, all Muslim. The villages paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on wheat, barley, olive trees, vineyards, fruit trees, goats and beehives. 

I want to return to the main topic, namely, the sharp increase in major crimes committed in Israel’s Arab communities. Many community leaders blame the police, who they say have failed to crack down on powerful criminal organisations and largely ignore the violence. They cite family feuds, mafia-like turf wars, protection rackets and violence against women. The communities have also suffered from years of neglect by state authorities.

Local leaders claim that many people in the Israeli Arab sector are living in fear of being caught up in the violence. They are afraid to leave their homes at night.

The problem is multifaceted and includes numerous national and societal failings, especially the reluctance of the government and police; official neglect of the Arab community; a lack of access to banking services, leaving no option but to seek loans on the grey market; shortfalls in police manpower.

Ironically, the weakening of some large criminal organisations has benefitted smaller gangs that have been quick to replace them in a number of places.

According to the Abraham Initiatives, some 75 percent of murders in the Arab community are committed by organised criminal gangs, while 15 percent is attributed to tribal blood feuds, femicides involving family members and the remainder to general criminal activity.

Arab Israelis have called for the government to take stronger measures against the criminal gangs, but they are deeply opposed to the Shin Bet being tasked with fighting crime.

Just the same, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his call to involve the Shin Bet in the fight against the wave of violent crime in the Arab community, despite reported objections from the Shin Bet director and the attorney general.

At this juncture, I want to add a margin note to clarify our security agency acronyms. The Israel Security Agency "the General Security Service", better known by the acronym Shabak or the Shin Bet (a two-letter Hebrew abbreviation of "Security Service"), is Israel's internal security service. It is one of three principal organisations that make up the Israeli intelligence community, alongside Aman (military intelligence) and Mossad (foreign intelligence service).

Let’s return to the main text: -

The prime minister’s insistence on involving the Shin Bet in the war against crime in the Arab sector ignores the fact that the Shin Bet is a small organisation. A kind of elite patrol, whose purpose is the war on terrorism (along with countering espionage and some security tasks). It has no extra manpower to tackle other tasks; the diversion of its agents or means to the Arab sector will come at the expense of other tasks.

Furthermore, employing the Shin Bet security agency to combat the wave of Arab sector crimes is beyond the scope of the agency’s legal mandate and would violate privacy rights, warned Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara in letters sent Sunday in response to the prime minister’s proposal.                               

The Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) appealed to the attorney-general stating that, according to previous High Court of Justice rulings, the Shin Bet law should be interpreted as requiring the agency to be used in national security situations of serious and immediate danger to citizens and the state.

Under this narrow interpretation of the law, routine criminal threats would not be the province of responsibility of the Shin Bet, but of the Israel Police. Arab sector crime is not a novel phenomenon, and has been increasing for several years, the ACRI noted.

Tasking the Shin Bet with the responsibility of addressing Arab crime families is not a national security matter. To change its designated role, the government would have to pass a new law or amend the current Shin Bet Law, ACRI assessed. The NGO noted that the government’s intention appeared to be to bypass new legislation through a cabinet decision and rapid approval in a Knesset committee.

At the conclusion of a meeting with senior police and Shin Bet officials, Netanyahu’s office said he instructed authorities to prepare for the security agency’s involvement in law enforcement in communities plagued by crime gangs. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, also argued that an active role in policing would risk revealing Shin Bet’s investigative methods in court if they were to convict anyone.

Administrative Detention is another proposal that has been suggested recently. The legal basis for Israel's use of Administrative Detention is the British Mandate 1945 Defence (Emergency) Regulations which were amended in 1979 to form the Israeli Law on Authority in States of Emergency. Administrative detention is for six-month terms, although they can be extended barring appeal. Administrative detention is also used in cases where the available evidence consists of information obtained by the security services (particularly the Shin Bet), and where a trial would reveal sensitive security information, such as the identities of informers or infiltrators.

Although it is commonly applied to alleged Palestinian political activists, it has also been applied to a few Jewish Israeli citizens.

The identities of the Arab crime families are known to law enforcement authorities, but arresting them without concrete evidence wouldn’t put an end to criminal activity in our Arab communities. Arresting them and keeping them behind bars till an effective system of law enforcement is established in Israeli Arab communities is worth considering.

I’ll hazard a guess and say that Netanyahu will get his way. He will force the Shin Bet to tackle the problem.

 

Have a good weekend.

 

Beni.                                      15^th of June, 2023.