In Lod, Netanyahu vows to fight surging crime in Arab community, claims AG posing obstacles

Speaking at an event in the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Lod, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government is determined to combat crime in Arab society.

“The crime in Arab society is a sin, we must overcome it, we are working on it all the time. We are committed and we will do it,” he says during a ceremony marking the extension of Lod’s umbrella agreement that is set to see thousands of new housing units built in the city.

The premier appears to blame the surging crime rates and the years-long failure to curb them on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, stating that “we have to overcome several obstacles — one of them being the attorney general.”

Lod, in central Israel, has one of the highest concentrations of violent crime in the country, and has been the site of many gang-related homicides over the past year.

During Netanyahu’s speech, one of the city council members, Michal Hen Sofir, interrupts him, lamenting that the city’s old neighborhoods have become “crime enclaves.”

“Little children are paying the price. It can’t be that people are leaving the old [neighborhoods] for the new, turning [them] into crime enclaves,” she says, before the crowd chastises her for cutting into the premier’s speech.

Netanyahu praises the councilwoman, calling her courageous, before she takes her seat.

The ceremony to expand Lod’s umbrella agreement was attended by Netanyahu, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Housing Minister Haim Katz, and the city’s mayor, Yair Revivo.