On Monday, November 17, Israel’s Police Force provided a Knesset committee with data on its efforts to confiscate illegal arms in Arab communities. Discussed at this same meeting was the killing of a Kafr Kana man, Kheir a-Din Hamdan, whom police shot dead on November 7 after he attacked their vehicle with a knife. His death sparked protests in the Galilee village and elsewhere. “We feel that, like in the recent event in Kafr Kana, police are too easy on the trigger when it comes to an Arab citizen,” said Mazen Gnaim, deputy mayor of the Galilean town of Sakhnin and acting head of the Monitoring Committee of the Israel’s Arab Leadership. “Violence is a cancer,” he said.

Water canon used during clashes at the entrance to the town of Kafr Kana, in the north of Israel, November 8, 2014.Clashes broke out after police shot and killed 22-year-old Khayr a-Din Hamdan, who had approached a police van with a knife during a police raid the night before (Photo: Activestills)

Hussein al-Hayb, mayor of Tuba Zangaria, also discussed the Kafr Kana incident: “We don’t justify the youth who came up to the patrol car with a knife; but had the district commander announced that the policeman would be suspended until [the incident] was investigated, we wouldn’t have witnessed what’s been happening in the community” – namely, days of demonstrations and riots. He continued: “The true test of Israeli democracy is equality for its Arab citizens.”

Mahmoud A’asi, mayor of Kafr Bara, said that he himself had been threatened, and police had duly arrested a suspect, “but there was a problem with the prosecution’s case, which resulted in a revolving door.” He called for stiffer sentences and said he “is willing to volunteer in the police for the sake of security for my constituents.”

MK Hanna Swaid (Hadash) said, “There’s an assumption among the Arab public that the police know about every gun that exists [in Arab towns] but don’t take action to confiscate them.” MK Dov Khenin (Hadash) noted that “Knesset members and mayors from every faction say unequivocally that the Arab public doesn’t want weapons. It’s inconceivable that a state that knows how to prevent security incidents doesn’t know how to prevent incidents that affect the security of citizens living in the Arab towns.” He suggested that police launch an immediate drive in cooperation with Arab mayors to systematically confiscate illegal weapons.