Report: Terror groups trying to use Arab Israeli crime groups to carry out nationalistic attacks

Security officials have warned government ministers that terror groups are trying to utilize crime organizations in Israel’s Arab community in order to carry out nationalistic attacks in the Jewish state, casting the proliferation of illegal weapons as a tangible threat to national security, the Haaretz daily reports.

Citing unnamed sources, the outlet says terror groups from abroad have already attempted to direct such attacks, often without the local crime groups knowing they are acting on the terrorists’ behalf.

The report says the security officials who briefed ministers have highlighted the ongoing failure to rein in an unprecedented wave of violent crime in the Arab community, coupled with wartime proliferation and increasing availability of illegal weapons in the community.

“The crime organizations are a strategic threat to national security,” they are said to have warned. “The state is near the point of no return in its ability to deal with the phenomenon.”