From Ben Gvir boycotts meeting on fighting Arab crime, drawing rebuke from Netanyahu
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"
Far right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir boycotts a meeting of a subcommittee on combating crime in Arab society convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
According to the Ynet news site, officials in Ben Gvir’s ministry say that they declined to attend the meeting after Maj.-Gen. Yoram Sofer was uninvited. This comes even though Ben-Gvir has declined to speak to Sofer for the past year. Last week Sofer was demoted from his position overseeing the fight against Arab crime.
“It is amazing that today of all days, 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,” sources tell Ynet.
At the start of the discussion, Netanyahu said, according to Ynet: “I am not impressed by these boycotts. We will deal with them separately.”
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.
