Ben-Gvir left hundreds of millions to fight crime in Arab communities unspent

Josh Breiner reports in Haaretz on 16 September 2026:

The National Security Ministry has failed to use hundreds of millions of shekels allocated to combat crime in Arab society, with the money returned to the Finance Ministry.  According to a Prime Minister’s Office document, the ministry headed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has so far used two-thirds of its 2026 budget, which stands at 300 million shekels ($98 million).  In 2025, the ministry used about 67 percent of its annual budget, with the 100 million shekels left over being returned to the state.

According to data previously published by Haaretz, of the 1.5 billion shekels allocated to the ministry as part of a five-year budget for 2022-2026, also known as Government Resolution 549, the ministry used only about 950 million shekels. In other words, over five and a half years, the ministry used about 63 percent of the funds, leaving 550 million shekels for the final six months of the program.

According to a senior source in one of the government ministries, most of the budget was earmarked for recruiting police officers to stations in Arab and mixed communities, but the police failed to meet the targets they had set.

“In practice, there is a severe shortage of police officers overall, but an especially acute shortage at Arab stations,” the source said, adding that “people don’t want to come. There are no incentives either. It’s very difficult work, dealing with high levels of crime at difficult hours, and it’s not a rewarding job.”

At the Lod police station, a mixed city in central Israel, the source said, officers deal with an especially high number of murders and violent crimes. Yet while the station has positions for 180 officers, only about 100 actually serve there, at most.

A similar situation has emerged at the National Authority for Community Security, which operates under the National Defense Ministry. The authority’s purpose is to implement community-based programs to reduce crime in Arab communities. But after only half of the 17 million shekels allocated to it last year was used, 7.5 million shekels were returned to the state treasury.

Last month, heads of Arab local authorities petitioned against the government’s decision to divert about 532 million shekels from the five-year plan for Arab society, Government Resolution 549, toward expanding the fight against crime. The move was initiated by Social Equality Minister May Golan.  The petitioners argued that diverting the funds was unnecessary because money had already been allocated to similar programs at the National Security Ministry.

However, while Ben-Gvir’s ministry did not see a need to fully use these funds, other government bodies were forced to exceed their own allocations to combat rising crime.  For example, the Tax Authority exceeded its budget by 10 million shekels for combating the black market economy in Arab society. At the same time, the Interior Ministry exceeded its budget by 12 million shekels.

Since Ben-Gvir took office, the number of murders in Israel, and particularly in Arab society, has surged. According to Haaretz’s tracking, there were 108 murders in Arab society in 2022. In 2023, his first year in office, the number of victims rose to 242.

A year later, the figure stood at 233, and in 2025 a record 251 people were murdered. So far in 2026, 171 people have been murdered in Arab society. Clearance rates, meanwhile, remain low: Only 15 to 20 percent of cases in Arab society are solved.

The National Security Ministry said in response: “This is complete fake news and yet more propaganda by Haaretz disguised as ‘journalism.’ The balance figures cited in the inquiry are absurd, fabricated, baseless and unsupported by facts.”  The ministry also said: “The budget allocated to the police under Government Resolution 549 was incorporated into the police’s base budget at the very beginning of the resolution. Therefore, all of it is already permanently part of the police budget and is, naturally, fully utilized. In general, the National Security Ministry is at the top of the list of ministries that have utilized their budgets most fully in recent years under Government Resolution 549.”

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