The Economist November 20th 2021 Middle East & Africa 55tion and an is affiliate.
It is not yet certain whether the adfhas
operational links to is. A report by un ex
perts in June found no conclusive evidence
that is had command over it, or provided
“financial, human or material” support.
But jihadist propaganda that links the two
groups has raised the adf’s profile and lets
is boast of an everwider global reach.
Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni,
also has an interest in playing up the
threat. He has long positioned himself as
an ally in the global war on terror, securing
financial and military support from West
ern governments which has helped him
prolong his authoritarian rule.
“The adf originally grew out of a feeling
of marginalisation among the Muslim
community of Uganda,” says Kristof Titeca
of the University of Antwerp, noting that
thegovernmenthassometimesmadethat
problemworse.A notoriousantiterrorism
policeunithasa recordofabductingand
torturingMuslims,some ofwhom have
diedincustody.Afterthisweek’sbomb
ingsMrMuseveniboastedoftherecentex
trajudicialkillingsofsevenmenwhohe
sayswerelinkedtotheadf. Tellingly,he
signedoffwiththenicknamehissuppor
tersgavehiminthecivilwarthatbrought
him to power: Ssabalwanyi, meaning
“Greatestoffighters”.n
Israel
Spies against crime
A
ugust11th wasa redletterdayforthe
Israeli police. A new division, headed
by Israel’s first Muslim deputy commis
sioner, was inaugurated with the mission
“to thwart crime in ArabIsraeli communi
ties and to restore security to the streets”.
In the Middle East, where no ceremony is
complete without guns, weapons seized in
raids on Arab neighbourhoods were put on
display. Naftali Bennett, Israel’s prime
minister, promised enough funding to tri
ple the number of Arab officers in the force
in the next few years.
In the months since, however, violence
has soared. At least 109 ArabIsraelis have
been murdered this year, mostly by gangs.
To emphasise their control of the streets,
criminals shot at the new commander’s
home in Kafr Kanna in Galilee.
Israeli and foreign attention is often fo
cused on the violent clashes between Is
raelis and Palestinians in the West Bank
and Gaza. Overlooked is a growing crime
wave afflicting IsraeliArabs. In 2020 a re
cord 96 IsraeliArabswerekilledincrimi
nal incidents. That figure has already been
surpassed this year, with 98 deaths in its
first nine months. IsraeliArabs are 21% of
Israel’s population but threequarters of
the country’s murder victims. Police think
that 80% of the country’s gunrelated
crimes between 2015 and 2019 took place in
Arab neighbourhoods, where tens of thou
sands of illegal weapons are stashed away.
On November 9th, 65 ArabIsraelis were ar
rested and dozens of weapons seized in
what the police described as the biggest ev
er operation of its kind in Israel.
This year the police have solved 71% of
murder cases where the victim was Jewish.
But this success rate tumbles to just 22%
when the victims are Arab (almost all non
political murders are JewonJew or Arab
onArab). One of the main problems is, in
deed, a lack of policing. Despite promises
by previous governments to devote more
resources to such work in Arab neighbour
hoods, only 13% of police officers are Arab,
and a third of police stations planned for
Arab towns have never been built.
The shortfall is not just in numbers, but
in operational targets as well. Over the pre
vious two decades, police waged a success
ful campaign against the main Jewish or
ganised crime groups, leaving space for
Arab syndicates to take over their rackets.
Neglected by the police, some Arab lo
cal authorities have taken to hiring their
own security firms. But some of these have
brokered side deals with the crime families
and are now trying to block the police from
making arrests.
The question of how best to deal with
the crime wave goes to the heart of the
ArabIsraeli predicament. As Israeli citi
zens, most Arabs want to be treated equally
with Jews. But many also see themselves
primarily as Palestinian and feel that co
operating with or working for the Israeli
police would betray this identity.Efforts to curtail Arab criminals present
their own dilemmas. In the hope of achiev
ing swift results, the government also
plans to enlist Israel’s internal security
agency, the secretive Shin Bet, to make use
of its electronic snooping kit and intelli
gencegathering skills. These have been
honed during decades of trying to catch
Palestinian bombmakers.
Not everyone is happy to see the spy
agency turn its eyes to gang crime. Many
ArabIsraelis see Shin Bet as an agency of
political oppression and fear that its offi
cers see ArabIsraelis as potential fifthcol
umnists. Shin Bet also makes itself unpop
ular by shielding Arab criminals who dou
ble up as informants.
Mansour Abbas, the leader of Ra’am, a
conservativeIslamist party that is part of
the governing coalition, approves of the
government using “all the tools it has, all
the agencies it has” to fight crime. By join
ing the government, Ra’am has secured
$16bn in funding for Arab areas, part of
which will go to policing. His rival Ayman
Odeh, leader of the Joint List, an Arab oppo
sition alliance, retorted angrily, “After de
cades in which the government and police
treated us as the backyard, the last thing we
need is more of the same: police for Jews
and Shin Bet for Arabs.”
“The problem goes far beyond a lack of
police officers,” says Thabet Abu Rass of
the Abraham Initiatives, a protolerance
charity. A lack of building permits in Arab
areas provokes family feuds over the tiny
parcels of land that can be built on. A lack
of bank lending leaves many Arab citizens
reliant on loan sharks. Widespread job
lessness makes it easy for gangs to recruit
lookouts and gunmen. Mr Abu Rass blames
“Arab leaders who know who the crime
bosses are and won’t call them out, and the
Jewish leaders who won’t addressthecore
problems of equality”. Just addingmore
cops, he says, “won’t change that”.nJ ERUSALEM
Police are trying to quell a spike in the
murder rate among Arab-Israelis
The big guns of the criminal underworld