Bedouin policemen claim racist attitudes at southern police department

As tensions flare between authorities and Israel’s Bedouin population, a number of former Bedouin policemen have come forward to make claims of systemic racism in a southern police department, including alleged bigoted behavior by colleagues and commanders.

Two police officers who were recently fired from the force told Channel 2 on Sunday that racism was behind their dismissal by the interim commander of the Netivot police department.

One former officer, identified as “A,” served on the force for 11 years before recently being let go, with commanders saying he was unfit for duty. A, a native of the Bedouin town of Rahat, told Channel 2 he had dreamed of serving the state as a policeman since childhood. He had received citations for exemplary service both during his time in the Israeli military and in the police force, according to the report.

The former officer said his Jewish subordinates had on several occasions referred to him as a “stinking Bedouin” and used other derogatory terms. “They said it next to officers, and the officers did nothing,” he said.

And the interim commander, he claimed, had treated him and other Bedouin policemen viciously, and eventually brought about their dismissal.

“I can’t believe the state, or the police, have done this to me. It’s a betrayal,” he said. “Let’s put it this way: They wouldn’t have done this to Jewish cops. I was dismissed for totally illegitimate reasons, due to racism. Because I’m Bedouin. So why did you ever recruit me? After 11 years I’m suddenly unfit?”

Seemingly reinforcing A’s version of events, a text message sent by the interim commander to another Jewish policeman in the department, and which was obtained by Channel 2, outright rejected the idea of bringing in another Bedouin policeman to the department.

“Another Bedouin in the station is a really bad idea,” the commander wrote, then added as an apparent joke: “Start drafting Jews or I’ll fire you.”

The same Jewish policeman who received that message claimed that the commander further told him during a conversation: “I don’t want to bring Bedouin to the police. All they know how to do is f*** Jewish women and cause nothing but problems.”

A second Bedouin policeman who was also recently dismissed told Channel 2 that the commander had it out for members of the Bedouin community. He too claimed racist attitudes were behind his termination.

Police told Channel 2 they were probing the allegations against the interim commander.

However, they rejected “any attempt to tie between alleged statements by the officer and the decision to dismiss the two policemen, which was made due to serious behavioral and functional problems.”

Police added that they had made “tremendous efforts to enlist Muslim policemen to the force over the past year.” Such an effort, police reasoned, “is incompatible with [accusations of] a racist attitude. Racist statements against any sector of the population have no place in the Israel Police and stand in complete opposition to the values of police.”

The allegations further raise tensions between authorities and the Bedouin community, following a deep disagreement over an incident earlier this month in which a resident of the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran drove his car into a crowd of police officers supervising court-ordered home demolitions, killing 1st Sgt. Erez Levi, 34, a father of two from Yavneh.

Authorities have claimed it was a terror attack and that the driver, Yaqoub Mousa Abu Al-Qia’an, 47, a teacher and father of 12, had ties to Islamic radicalism.

Relatives of Abu al-Qia’an insist he was not an assailant, and was not in control of the vehicle when it smashed into police lines as he had been fatally shot.

A police video appears to show officers firing on him before the vehicle accelerated into a group of police officers.

In the days after the incident, there were wide-spread protests and demonstrations by members of Israel’s Arab community against the shooting of Abu al-Qia’an and against alleged discrimination that prevents members of the community obtaining legal building approval, resulting in illegal construction.