Police Chief Superintendent Roni Alsheich told the cabinet meeting on Sunday that 60% of murder cases originate in the Arab sector.
Internal Security Minister Gilad Erdan responded that “a gap has been created over the years between law enforcement in the Arab and Jewish sectors, a gap that must be closed by establishing police stations across the Arab sector.”
Erdan argued that without those new police stations Israel cannot establish its sovereignty in any of the Arab communities on either side of the green line, nor in eastern Jerusalem.
Alsheich, who was appointed only recently, shared with the cabinet worrisome data about the weakening of the traffic police, at the same time there has been a leap in the number of road accident fatalities. According to the new Chief Superintendent, in 2009 there were 309 traffic patrol cars, compared with only 112 today, an alarming drop of 63%.
The data also shows that the traffic police budget has been curbed significantly, from $52 million in 2009 to a mere $9 million in 2012.
The number of traffic fatalities in 2015 jumped by 10.6%, to 357 dead, compared with 2014, that had 319 dead, the highest such leap since 1992, when the number rose by 15%.
98 of the victims were Arabs in 2015, about 27.5% of the total, with the Arab population constituting only close to 20% of the Israeli population overall.