GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Arab political leaders in Israel hope their constituents will come to cooperate with Israeli security services to eliminate violence in Arab towns and cities, where crime has reached high levels in part because of the spread of unlicensed weapons.

For decades, the Arab community has largely refused to deal with official Israeli institutions, which they accuse of racism against the 1.8 million Arabs who live there and make up 20% of Israel's population. For example, in July 2018, Israel adopted a law claiming Israel as the exclusive "nation-state" of the Jewish people. The law reads, “The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people,” and it eliminated Arabic as an official language.

But Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan and the heads of the Arab Joint List — which holds 13 seats in the 120-member Israeli Knesset — agreed Oct. 10 to Israeli police carrying out a gun collection campaign in the next few days or weeks. Police will ask citizens of Arab towns and cities to voluntarily hand over their unlicensed weapons; those who do will not be prosecuted. In addition, 620 policemen have been deployed permanently in these towns to enhance security, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Makan) reported Oct. 11.

Makan noted that Israeli police had launched a similar campaign to collect unlicensed weapons in the Arab community in 2017, but the effort produced only three pistols out of hundreds or thousands of weapons spread across Arab towns. Police blamed the poor response on a lack of Arab cooperation.