Description
Over the last two decades there is a significant increase in gun crime violence among Palestinians in Israel. This phenomenon affects nearly every Palestinian town and village, with the increasing numbers of murder and assault victims, and ever-expanding organized crime. Youth are at the center of the crisis and the most affected, both as victims and offenders. This paper will present the research findings from 2020-22, based on 70 qualitative interviews. The study explores the social, economic, and political factors that drive young Palestinians in Israel to gun crime versus those that are supposed to shield them. We examine the role of Israel as settler colonial regime in perpetuating the phenomenon of violence and crime in the Palestinian society in Israel and focus on the impact on young people. As grounded theory research, it prioritizes people’s voices and their interpretations of the phenomenon.
The study concludes that decades of colonial policies have produced multiple social crises in the Palestinian society in Israel, amongst the most damaging of which are interpersonal violence and organized crime. Under the conditions created by Israel, three main factors attract young people to violence and crime: Communal status, financial opportunity, personal security. The study also reviews two factors that are usually supposed to contribute to reduction of violence: social institutions, cohesion, and law enforcement.
