Ahmed sits in a room surrounded by images of violence – drawings of guns on the walls, bullets scattered on the floor and color posters of Bruce Lee, Rambo and wrestlers. It’s a large room that clearly serves as a meeting place; lots of chairs scattered around, a stereo set, empty liquor bottles and signs of light drugs.
The house belongs to Ahmed’s friend in a crime gang where Ahmed has been working for several years. He’s a “soldier.”
Ahmed (not is real name) is only 22, but in the experience he has racked up the crime world, his resum? features an arrest and the misfortune of being the target of an assassination attempt. “Why wouldn’t I carry a gun?” he asks. “Why shouldn’t I be in a gang?” For many young people like him in the Arab-Israeli community (most of whom prefer to identify themselves as Palestinians with an Israeli citizenship), this is a rhetorical question.
Throughout the country, youths not yet 18 embrace a dangerous criminal lifestyle. They tell similar stories: They come from poor families, they feel threatened and are looking for friends who will protect them and give them a sense of connection, money and even status. They’re willing to pay almost any price.
A street in Jaffa. “My conscience started working only in prison, only after I’d lost something,” a 25-year-old from the north says. The person photographed is not related to the story. Tomer Appelbaum
“At first I didn’t even know it was a crime organization,” Ahmed says. “I thought it was a group of young people like me who hadn’t found their way.”
In the beginning he tagged along with a friend who was close to a crime organization in the so-called Triangle, a group of Arab towns in the center of the country. He was merely his friend’s driver.
“Gradually, this changed, and I started carrying things from place to place; I’d get a small amount of money, maybe 200 or 400 shekels [$130] a day.”
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Eventually he started delivering guns. “Not in commercial quantities, just a pistol or a Carlo,” he says, referring to a homemade Carl Gustav submachine gun. Sometimes he would deliver it from apartment to apartment, sometimes from person to person. This slowly became routine.
At a quick glance, Ahmed indeed looks slightly threatening. He has no gun in his pocket, at least you can’t see one. He’s wearing brand-name black nylon pants, a black jacket and a black hat. He looks somber. Eight years have passed since he entered the world of crime, and it shows.
“I was a boy of 14 and learned how to assemble an M-16 rifle,” he says. There was also a reward tempting him to remain. “It’s good money, sometimes up to 800 shekels a day, as well as food and protection.”
A police car and officer in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Jaffa. Those photographed are not related to the article. Tomer Appelbaum
His work still usually consists of transferring weapons from place to place. He hasn’t risen through the ranks. He doesn’t know the boss personally. “We met once, exchanged hellos, and that was it,” he says.
This isn’t unusual. Simple foot soldiers stay that way for a while; there’s no road to advancement here, certainly not a quick one.
Only the road to crime is a fast one. “My father died of cancer when I was little. My mother left us two years later and married somebody from Hebron” in the West Bank, he says, so Ahmed, his brother and sister went to live with their grandparents – in poverty.
“There were days when there was only water in the refrigerator, no food or anything. I’d skip school a lot; the teachers and principal would look for me.” From there, the road to crime was short.
Just as sports teams have scouts, the heads of crime groups have mechanisms for recruiting new members. Recruiters know how to market an identity a sensitive young person will cherish. Often recruiters are female, even quite young, using sex as a lure in exchange for joining the gang.
Above all, recruits receive a sense of being protected, including their families. This is critical in a society where crime groups, to a large extent, determine society’s agenda. And so the member numbers of these organizations continue to grow, along with the power wielded by their bosses.
Lowest common social denominator
Acquiring a sense of being protected was critical for Rami (not his real name) from southern Israel. Not yet an adult, he met someone through a neighbor.
“We went out twice, and he paid,” Rami says. “We ate and drank alcohol. Our connection grew stronger and he told me he was involved in criminal activities and had power, and that if I needed help I should tell him and he’d fix everything; he wouldn’t let anybody hurt me.”
Rami didn’t join the gang too quickly but maintained his connection with that person, until one day he owed someone money and started receiving threats. “I turned to him and he helped me a lot. I really saw his power and how the people who threatened me were afraid of him. At that moment I wanted to be like him, at any price.”
The scene of a murder in Taibeh last September. “Where can the kids go after school?” a Taibeh resident asks. “They don’t have what young people in Herzliya or Kfar Sava have.” Tomer Appelbaum
Rami was still in school then – “I was cursed at almost every day, kids in class would make fun of me” – and his ties with the member of the crime gang tightened. “I started working, doing small things, getting money for anything I did.” He has been there ever since but isn’t completely resigned to the future awaiting him.
“It’s not like a field trip, even though it may sound like fun when I talk about it.” He says there have been many threats on his life and that of his sponsor – “meaning that if I said anything during a police investigation, I’d find myself, or my mother and sister, in a grave.”
This was the same conclusion reached by Samer, a 25-year-old from the north. “If you say anything about them, you know the result,” he says. “The organization doesn’t make you stay, since it can bring in 10 more like you, but usually you need them. What they want from you is that you don’t snitch, because if you do, you or one of your family members will pay the price.”
He has already paid a price. A few years ago he took part in a shooting at a house where someone was wounded. The penalty: six years in prison. Samer was let out early, but he spent enough time behind bars to reflect. He decided to leave the organization, even though he had gotten used to its benefits.
“You have brand-name clothes, you travel in fancy cars, you have power and money, girls come to you … it’s hard to leave such a cushy life,” he says, adding that he enjoyed the preferential treatment – courtesy the crime organization – in prison. “They provided lawyers and perks at the canteen. You even have people in the prison ward who’ll help you.”
But he left anyway. “When I was in prison I thought about my mother. What did she think of me, how did the family regard me? My mother is a good woman and wanted me to be a better person. I was pained by what I’d caused her more than by what I’d done to myself,” Samer says.
“My conscience only started working in prison, only after I’d lost something. There are many young soldiers willing to kill every week if they’re not caught. Me too – when I fired at that house, I didn’t think about anything.”
When he looks back at what landed him prison, his story sounds familiar. “My father was an alcoholic, he was naive; everybody in our neighborhood laughed at him because of the way he behaved. As a kid I was very embarrassed by him,” Samer says.
“Neighborhood kids felt uncomfortable around me. It was very difficult for me. You won’t find sons of doctors or teachers in the crime organization. Everybody there had a difficult childhood. I remember how nobody looked after us; our road to the crime world was paved. It’s easy to blame us, but look at the circumstances.”
Omar Abdel-Khai, a social worker for young people, also sees a common denominator.
Girls at a school in the north. With half the Arab community under the poverty line, boys are sometimes drawn into the violence of criminal gangs. Tomer Appelbaum
“These kids come with very low self-esteem after the rejection they experience at a young age, and their relations with their friends are shaky,” he says. “At some point, to prove themselves, they resort to crime or join a crime group, or form a gang with friends of a similar background.”
Usually, “at-risk youths belong to mixed families, with one parent from the territories” – the West Bank – “or parents who migrated from one place to another, living in dire socioeconomic circumstances.”
A hint at potential criminality
Meanwhile, the number of people joining crime groups is expected to rise unless something changes soon. According to the National Insurance Institute, in 2017, half of families in the Arab community lived under the poverty line (among the Negev Bedouin the number is 70 percent). According to the government’s authority for economic development in the Arab community, 40 percent of Arab Israelis between 18 and 24 are neither working nor studying. For the Jewish community the number is 8 percent.
But these figures only hint at the potential for turning to crime. A committee of ministry directors general submitted its recommendations for crime and violence in Arab society in July 2020. It found that 44 percent of minors convicted in 2017 were Arabs, compared with their rate of 30 percent in the general population.
“As long as the undermining of values and culture persists or increases, this trend will grow,” Abdel-Khai says. “In many cases, the road will lead to crime.” As part of his work, Abdel-Khai helps at-risk youths at boarding schools. “Many of them were arrested in various incidents during the riots last May,” he says, referring to the interethnic disturbances during the fighting with Gaza.
The boarding school actually often is a launching pad to the world of crime. This was the case for Alaa, a 19-year-old from the north who grew up at a boarding school in central Israel.
“When I lived there, I had a friend who was close to one of the crime groups,” he says. “Sometimes they’d pick him up in fancy cars. It was very tempting. It was clear that they had a lot of money.” Once, while on vacation, his friend asked him to come with him. They got into a car, where a relative of his friend was sitting; he was in one of the crime gangs.
“I was maybe 16 on the day they offered me a gun,” Alaa recalls. “Then he asked if I was afraid of guns. I said I wasn’t, even though I was, but I didn’t want to seem weak. We went to the woods near our village, and my friend’s relative took out a gun and fired into the air. It was the first time I’d heard a gunshot up close. It was scary.”
A few weeks later the three met again. This time Alaa was given a chance to shoot. “I didn’t hesitate. The gun was in his hand, but I fired it. I just pulled the trigger,” he says.
“We’ve all fallen asleep on our watch, including parents, families, schools, social workers, the establishment,” a resident of the city of Taibeh says. Those photographed are not related to the story. Tomer Appelbaum
“We stayed in touch, going out and having fun, drinking together. When I was released from the boarding school my friend suggested that I work in a car that took people from place to place. I was 17 and realized I’d been recruited.”
Nasreen (not her real name) knows what goes on in boarding schools and in the crime organizations. “For them, these young people are an asset. They’re always at the forefront, always the ones who get arrested, the ones who get into trouble,” she says.
“That’s why they teach them how to withstand investigations, what to say and what not to say, of course using threats while teaching them.” Nasreen works in a closed boarding school for Arab youths.
“Many of these kids don’t join the better-known large organizations. They form a small gang with friends or family, but most of these gangs, even if they’re not part of the crime groups, cooperate with them, acting as subcontractors in exchange for money, guns or drugs.”
Nasreen says that recently even at-risk girls are joining crime groups. “They use them for smuggling drugs or phones to prisoners, or for smuggling guns,” she says.
Nowhere to go, nothing to do
A word that constantly crops up in conversations with both teenagers and adults in this saga is “circumstances.” “In Taibeh, young people have nowhere to go after school. There’s one swimming pool in town serving as a leisure center for 55,000 people,” says Amir, a resident of this northern city who is very familiar with the world of the crime groups.
“That’s not enough. Where can the kids go after school? They don’t have what young people in Herzliya or Kfar Sava have, making them fertile ground for criminal activity. It’s easiest to blame the victim and say that violence is in our blood.”
Amir says that new members in crime organizations tend to be satisfied. “They think they’re on the map. They have guns, power or a gang, and everybody respects them,” he says. “Before that, nobody even looked at them. We’ve all fallen asleep on our watch, including parents, families, schools, social workers, the establishment.”
Every 15-year-old can buy a gun and form a gang with his friends, he says. “They steal, shoot and kill. As soon as a kid has a gun, that’s when he expresses himself. No kid is born with a gun in his hand; that’s how they were shaped by circumstances.”
Amir predicts that the future will be worse. “We have a lot of scores to settle and the police suffice with charades. Anybody can be a victim, me or my cousin who was murdered, or my brother, who was a target of an assassination,” Amir says.
“We’ve been in a long conflict, and nobody can resolve it. Everybody knows what happens in our conflicts except the police.”
