Ben Gvir boycotts meeting on Arab crime with Netanyahu amid new spat
PM quoted saying he’s ‘not impressed by such boycotts’ after latest clash with national security minister
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Thursday boycotted a meeting called by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss tackling burgeoning crime in Arab Israeli society, and instructed top police brass to do the same, highlighting the ongoing rifts between the prime minister and the far-right politician.
According to multiple Hebrew media outlets, including Channel 12, Ynet and others, officials in Ben Gvir’s ministry explained that they had declined to attend the meeting after the Israel Police’s Commander Yoram Sofer was uninvited. Sofer has been overseeing the fight against violent Arab crime, which has led to 173 murders within the community since the start of this year alone.
“The Prime Minister’s Office refused to authorize the participation of the person in charge of the fight against [Arab] crime to participate in the discussion. The reason is unclear,” the officials were quoted as saying.
Sofer’s disinvitation apparently led to Ben Gvir skipping the meeting, while also keeping Police Commissioner Daniel Levy and other top police officials away.
Ben Gvir has been reported to be on bad terms with Sofer, compounding confusion over the matter.
“It is amazing that in times like today, the minister decided to blow up a discussion that is at the core of his ministry’s area of activity with the excuse that a person with whom he refuses to meet or speak had not been invited to the limited discussion,” an unnamed source close to the matter told Ynet.
Meanwhile, different unnamed figures in the National Security Ministry told Channel 12 that “the odd refusal to allow Commander Sofer in indicates that the subject is apparently not really important to the Prime Minister’s Office. If that is the case, there’s no point in our taking part in futile meetings.”
Netanyahu was quoted by the outlets telling participants at the start of the meeting: “I am not impressed by these boycotts. We will deal with them separately.”
Ben Gvir’s refusal to attend Thursday’s meeting follows multiple conflicts between him and members of Netanyahu’s often fractious coalition.
He has threatened on numerous occasions to quit the government if Netanyahu signs a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza, called to fire Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and has repeatedly clashed with Netanyahu in his desire to overturn the volatile status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
He has also repeatedly threatened to boycott Knesset votes over various disagreements with the coalition, and actively thwarted legislation pushed by fellow coalition party Shas in order to pressure the premier to appoint him to a decision-making role in the Gaza war.
Netanyahu is widely regarded as deeply distrusting the firebrand far-right minister and has avoided including him in top decision-making forums. He is also believed to suspect that Ben Gvir often leaks details from closed-door meetings to the press.
According to a readout from the Prime Minister’s Office, Netanyahu stated during Thursday’s meeting that multiple initiatives to deal with Arab community crime were in the works, including an examination of the possibility of abolishing Israel’s NIS 200 notes as a measure to combat “black money” and money laundering.
Crime in the Arab community has skyrocketed in recent years, with more Arabs killed in homicides in 2023 than in any previous year, according to the Abraham Initiatives, a coexistence organization that tracks crime statistics.
Many community leaders blame the police, which they say has failed to crack down on powerful criminal organizations and largely ignore the violence. They also point to decades of neglect and discrimination by government offices as the root cause of the problem.
State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman last year dismissed the government’s response as inadequate and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has blamed Ben Gvir for failing to curb the flow of weapons into Arab towns.
Addressing a conference co-sponsored by the national-religious Makor Rishon newspaper in June, Smotrich claimed that Iran is attempting to destabilize Israel by pouring “hundreds of thousands of illegal weapons” into the Arab sector and “we are far from doing what is necessary to neutralize this risk ahead of time.
“In this matter, the police and those trusted with this have completely failed,” he asserted.
Speaking from the scene of a criminal car blast in Ramle that killed three children last week, Ben Gvir blamed Attorney General Gali Baharav Miara for the ongoing wave of crime in Israel, saying she had denied his request to use administrative detention against criminal offenders.
Administrative detention is a highly controversial tool whereby Palestinian terror suspects and, more rarely, Jewish terror suspects, are detained without charge or trial. The tool is typically used when authorities have intelligence tying a suspect to a crime but do not have enough evidence for charges to stand up in a court of law.
Critics say the policy denies prisoners due process, and human rights organizations have warned that it is a breach of civil rights.
Its potential use to deal with criminal affairs is seen as exceedingly problematic.
