MKs on Right and Left decry Netanya's escalating mafia violence; Pines says it's "unacceptable" to allow Israeli streets to turn into Chicago.
By ABE SELIGPines 88(photo credit: )
As feuding crime families push Netanya to the brink of an all-out mob war, members of Knesset are calling for changes in the law that would put more pressure on suspected criminals and free up the police to crack down on organized crime.
"There is no doubt that we're seeing a war between the organized crime families in Netanya," Labor MK Ophir Paz-Pines said at the start of a Knesset Internal Affairs Committee meeting on Monday. "It is unacceptable to allow this situation to become the norm, turning the streets of our cities into Chicago," he added. Shootouts, feuding crime families and the purported intimidation of city officials in recent weeks has taken Netanya - a city already accustomed to organized crime - that much closer to the days of mobsters like Al Capone and "Bugs" Moran.
Meanwhile, Knesset members and police, who spoke at length during Monday's meeting, said that it was time to take action to prevent the current outbreak of violence from becoming an everyday reality.
"If we could identify people who are potentially problematic and stop them, we would," said Kobi Zriham, Commander of the Police Department of International Investigations. "We want to do that every day, that's our job, but the courts prevent us from doing it. In order to give the police the proper tools to fight against organized crime, we need a change in the laws."
Alluding to the Netanya restaurant owned by the Abutbul family that police shut down on Sunday, which was reopened by a court order less than 24 hours later, Zriham said the court was undermining the police and sending the wrong message.
He also touched on the issue of illegal handguns, saying they run rampant in Netanya, and are one of the major factors that have led to the rash of shootings in recent weeks.
In response, Israel Beiteinu MK Yitzhak Aharonovitch said that legislators were already working to increase the punishments associated with the possession of unlicensed weapons.
"Lawmakers fighting in the courts to raise the punishment for violence and possession of an illegal firearm," Aharonovitch said. "But it needs to happen. The police don't have what they need to take on the crime families."
Other MKs were less forgiving, citing failures both at the hands of police and politicians, and blamed them for the deteriorating situation on the country's streets.
"How can we respect the police when people are shooting innocent bystanders in broad daylight?" asked Shas MK David Azoulay. "It's happening in Acre, Netanya, I'm telling you - no place is safe!"
In a two-pronged jab at both the police and the Internal Security Ministry, Israel Beiteinu MK David Rotem said the heads of both institutions were too busy with their own matters to focus on the mob.
"The security minister is busy with primaries and the police chief is busy switching out his major generals," Rotem said. "Meanwhile, the government of Israel is failing to protect its citizens."
Former Netanya mayor Vered Swid, who also spoke at Monday's meeting, told The Jerusalem Post that the police simply don't have the authority to go after crime families, and changes must be made before it's too late.
"There needs to be more cooperation between the various offices," Swid said. "It's too easy for these guys to fall through the cracks." Swid, who fought hard against the crime families during her reign as mayor, said she faced death threats, bugged phones in her office, and other methods of intimidation when her efforts began to disturb the various mafia elements at work in the coastal city.
"They even cut my brakes once," she said. "I had to check my car every morning to see if they had placed a bomb under it overnight." In his concluding remarks to the committee Paz-Pines called upon the next prime minister to make fighting organized crime a top priority.
"We need new ideas, not more of the same," he said. "I expect the next prime minister, whoever it is, to deal with this issue and make a dramatic difference. As it stands now, these people aren't afraid of anybody except mobsters from the next group who are coming after them. Something has to be done."
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