Over 20 years ago, sociologist Didier Bigo described a familiar but rarely acknowledged logic at the heart of modern security policy. In moments of crisis, security professionals argue that exceptional measures and expanded powers are urgently required to restore calm.
In moments of calm, they argue, proven systems must be preserved – and expanded – to prevent the next crisis. Either way, the conclusion is the same: More security funding, more coercive capacity, fewer questions. This circular logic is increasingly visible in Israel’s current approach to crime and violence in Arab society.
Over recent months, a troubling pattern has emerged. Under the banners of “budgetary constraints” and “security priorities,” the government has begun to retreat from precisely those social, educational, and preventive investments that are essential for long-term stability, equality, and public safety. These are not marginal programs.
They are the backbone of the five-year plans, most notably Government Resolution 550, designed to reduce disparities, strengthen Arab society, and address the roots of crime and violence.
What we are seeing is not a series of isolated technical adjustments but a shift in governing logic – away from prevention and partnership and toward control and containment.
Money was diverted away from Arab society
Approximately NIS 220 million earmarked under Government Decision 550, funds intended to build opportunity, resilience, and social mobility in Arab society, were diverted to policing and intelligence operations.
The stated rationale was the fight against violent crime. The implicit message was harder to miss. When social policy becomes inconvenient or slow, coercive power can substitute for prevention.
These moves signal a profound shift from building resilience to managing fallout; from investing in people to controlling them; from partnership to enforcement. This is not a recipe for public safety. It is a strategy for escalation.
The damage is cumulative. When youth programs are frozen, fewer young people reach higher education or stable employment. When community and prevention programs are cut, the underlying drivers of violence remain untouched. These are immediate harms, measured in lost opportunities, eroded trust, and – in some cases – lives.
But there is a second, more insidious effect. When programs are disrupted or under-implemented, the state can later argue that “funds were not fully utilized,” that “implementation capacity was insufficient,” or that “the field was not ready.”
A dangerous feedback loop emerges: Budgets are approved on paper but weakened in practice; implementation falters; and the resulting underperformance is then cited to justify further cuts, or worse, by preventing the future five-year plans from materializing.
Arab society risks being penalized twice. First, through the reduction of services, and then through the erosion of political willingness to reinvest. Thus, Government Resolution 550 risks being hollowed out from within, reduced from a historic national commitment to a symbolic framework with diminishing real-world impact.
At moments like this, the role of civil society is not to replace the government on the basis of philanthropic funding, but first and foremost in taking the reins in leading the battle against the cuts.
Long-term national commitments are only meaningful if they can withstand short-term political and budgetary pressures. When preventive systems erode, the consequences ripple outward, undermining trust, increasing enforcement costs, and weakening the state’s own capacity to deliver on its policy decisions.
Without strong field actors, even well-designed plans collapse. Without prevention, policing becomes more expensive and less effective. Without trust, systems fail, and crime and violence become ubiquitous. Criminal activity, murder, and illicit behavior in the public sphere will not remain confined to Arab local authorities. These actions are slowly overflowing into other parts of Israel, socially and geographically.
Philanthropy cannot and should not substitute for the state. But it plays a critical role in preserving professional capacity, preventing the collapse of proven models, and sustaining partnerships when political winds shift.
From our point of view in civil society, we see our responsibility clearly: to hold the line on prevention, equity, and shared society, and to work with government bodies to ensure that approved funds are implemented effectively rather than lost to bureaucratic erosion or political retreat. Israel stands at a crossroads.
One path leads toward shrinking social investment, securitized thinking, and a cycle of deepening inequality and violence. The other demands courage, persistence, and partnership: investing in prevention, strengthening implementation, and honoring national commitments not only in budgets but in practice.
Civil society remains committed to the second path, and to working with partners, funders, and government institutions to ensure that the promise of Government Resolution 550 is fulfilled, not quietly undone.
Bigo warned that when security becomes a self-justifying logic, it no longer asks whether it is effective, only whether it can be expanded. Israel now faces precisely that test. If calm justifies cuts to prevention, and crisis justifies their replacement with force, then security ceases to be a strategy and becomes a reflex. A democratic state cannot afford such shortcuts.
Real security is not built by oscillating between neglect and coercion, but by sustaining the civilian, social, and institutional foundations that prevent crisis in the first place. If Israel is serious about safety, resilience, and cohesion – for all its citizens – it must break this cycle, and choose investment over improvisation, partnership over control, and long-term stability over short-sighted politics.
The writer is co-CEO of AJEEC-NISPED, the Arab-Jewish Center for Empowerment, Equality, and Cooperation – Negev Institute for Strategies of Peace and Economic Development.