Israeli plan to boost police measures in Arab areas

The Israeli government has approved a plan to boost security measures in Arab areas inside Israel through establishing 10 new police stations.

A key element in significantly reducing the number of terrorist attacks has been to limit the number of “successful” attacks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

Netanyahu's comments came at the top of the weekly cabinet meeting that was to hear a briefing from the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) indicating a significant decline in the number of attacks during the recent wave to terror, the JPost reported on Sunday.

“The main factor leading to the spread of terror, elsewhere and in Israel, is success,” Netanyahu said. “The degree to which we reduce the successes, we are reducing those who want to join those successes. That is the main thing that we are doing, and we will continue, as well as in parallel taking aggressive action against the Palestinian incitement,”

Netanyahu stressed that he was talking about a significant decrease in the number of attacks with “caution, since this trend can change.”

He attributed the decrease in the wave of terror stretching back to October 2015 to an “aggressive, responsible, and systematic policy that the government has led." He said the policy contained both offensive and defensive elements, and “brought about a situation where the terrorist elements are succeeding less.”

In addition to the Shin Bet briefing, Netanyahu said the government will also deal with a multi-year plan to strengthen security throughout Jerusalem, and improve law enforcement and personal security in the Arab sector.

He said that the plan calls for establishing new police stations, enlisting another 2,600 police officers, and strengthening the operational capabilities of the police.

“We want equality in enforcing the law and that doesn't exist today,” he said.

“The Arab sector pays a high price for that, and the State of Israel pays a heavy price for that. We want one law, where there are no sectors where the law is not maintained. We want to reduce other gaps between the general population and the Arab population, we want to integrate them into all aspects of the state," the prime minister said.

Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said that the steps the cabinet will take to strengthen the police in the Arab sector is nothing less than “historic.” He said it will also allow Israel to assert its sovereignty throughout Jerusalem, while providing a greater sense of personal security there as well as throughout the Arab sector. 

Source :MENA