Why Ethiopian Jews are Protesting Police Violence in Israel
Why Ethiopian Jews are Protesting Police Violence in Israel
May 11, 2015
Business & Management, Social Sciences & Humanities
The Washington Post — BGU Prof. Guy Ben-Porat and Dr. Fany Yuval from the Department of Public Policy and Administration in the Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management have been studying the perceptions of minorities in Israel toward police for the past three years.
Their study, which included surveys and focus groups, includes 2,200 respondents from five different groups: Arab citizens, Ethiopian and Russian immigrants, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and a control group. Two groups stand out in their perceptions of police and policing: Arab citizens and Ethiopian immigrants.
Arab citizens complain of both under-policing and over-policing. Arab towns suffer from high crime rates, violence and reckless driving, attributed by their residents to internal crisis and intentional police neglect.
While under-policing is highly important, several incidents in which police officers gunned down Arab citizens have made headlines and generated uproar among the Arab community. Arab citizens, on the one hand, demand that police provide them with a level of service equal to Jewish citizens, but, on the other hand, are often alienated from police and distrust their intentions.
Ethiopians, display a different pattern of alienation and distrust related to police violence and abuse. Various reports in recent years raised complaints of Ethiopian young men mistreated by police, often subjected to violence. In both cases, however, it seems that their marginal position in Israeli society explains their mistreatment by police.
Ethiopians strongly believe they are discriminated against by police. As many as 26 percent of the respondents believe they will receive worse treatment from police than non-Ethiopians, while only 13 percent of Arab citizens and five percent of the control group feel the same way.
Ethiopian immigrants, a mere two percent of the population, are 30 percent of the population in juvenile jails. Accordingly, 42 percent of Ethiopians believe that the police arrest people for no reason, while only 20 percent of Arab citizens and 15 percent of the control group feel the same way.
Read the whole article on The Washington Post blog>>
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