The Weekly Portion: Crime families are terror organizations

The assassination of Yaakov Alperon in the heart of Tel Aviv, via a bomb planted in his car, is last week's major event.

The issue is not the identity of the murder victim but rather the lawlessness embodied in his murder.

Israel has several crime families; they are, for all intents and purposes, terrorist organizations. The war between them takes the lives of innocents who have the misfortune of finding themselves in the battle zone. Only a few months ago a mother was murdered  in front of her husband and two children on the beach in Bat-Yam, when was caught in the crossfires of a shooting aimed at some criminals in the area.

Yet the problem is not just that of the crime families and the battles between them. The Israeli citizen is no longer safe. Violence and brutality rule: on the streets, on the highways, in hospital emergency wards, in the schools. Everywhere, in effect.

This phenomenon is merely a symptom of a more general process - the decline of the State, the Government's abdication of its responsibility toward the citizen and his welfare. That is the situation in education, in health-care, in geriatric services, and likewise in internal security. For internal security too is a social service, and it too is being privatized. Expensive neighborhoods are patrolled by guards from private security companies; the wealthy have themselves and their possessions well-protected because they pay well. By contrast, the police presence in neighborhoods in distress and in the rest of the country is slight and powerless. It is a familiar fact that for a break-in or theft there is no point to lodge a complaint with the police. For severe cases of violence - only rarely is a substantial sentence imposed.

A fundamental change of mind-set is needed in all that concerns internal security. Criminal organizations need to be fought against just as the terrorist organizations are: with ingenuity and determination. The police have to be given the means and resources to deal with an increasingly sophisticated crime world. But even this is not enough. The police force has to be backed by a judiciary that is fully committed to the war against crime and violence. Sentences have to be stiffened and laws made harsher when crime and law enforcement are concerned. The police force needs the courts behind it, to carry out its job.

Only a government that reassumes responsibility for the welfare of its citizens, will also concern itself for their personal security, and fight effectively against crime and violence.