Aman Center – The Arab Center for Safe Society

Our mission is to deal with violence and crimes within the Arab society in Israel and human rights issues in general with focus on religious relations among groups.

The Arab minority in Israel constitutes one fifth of the state’s overall population. The overwhelming majority of this minority lives in its own Arab cities and villages whereas a small part of this minority lives in mixed Jewish-Arab cities.

The Arab minority in Israel has been suffering from low standards of living since the establishment of the state, mainly due to discriminatory policy when it comes to budget, resources distribution, social and economic development.

The Israeli policy makers’ abundance and ignorance of the Arab minority for decades have resulted in severe poverty, unemployment and criminality levels. In addition, this minority suffers from a serious lack in infrastructure services and facilities, a sluggish education system and an unjust and an unequal law enforcement system and poor policing activities.

This official Israeli authorities’ negligence policy, along with some social structural changes that the Arab minority has undergone over the past years, had resulted in a high and an alarming rise in the criminality and violence rates within this minority.

Since 2000 until this year, the Arab minority in Israel has recorded 1400 male and female victims of violence and criminality, an average of 71 victims annually compared with an average of 60 victims in Israel annually. Moreover, hundreds of physical and property assaults are being reported within the Arab minority every year.

In the light of this situation, the ordinary Arab citizen has become helpless against this continuous deterioration in his own personal security and safety and that of his family.

The Arab population’s human and civil rights were seriously damaged due to the different governmental bodies’ failure to deal with this crisis. In addition, the Arab minority’s local leadership is unable to efficiently deal with the problem due to the lack of a real aid.

Aman Center – The Arab Center for Safe Society- for years has been working intensively to protect human and civil rights, to influence the policy of both the governmental bodies and the local Arab leadership, regarding the spreading violence and criminality phenomenon within the Arab minority in Israel.

Aman Center’s goal is to make all involved parties join hands, instead of blaming each other, in order to effectively and efficiently deal with this severe phenomenon.

Aman Center aims to encourage the official authorities as well as the Arab minority’s leaders to take real responsibility, to join serious efforts, to allocate all necessary resources and to place this issue on top of their priorities.

Aman Center also organizes meetings, workshops and lectures for local youth and school pupils to enrich their awareness regarding the violence and criminality phenomenon and in order to create an appropriate future leadership capacity from these groups of youth and pupils to cope with the crisis.  

Moreover, Aman Center pays a special attention to the very sensitive relationship between the Arab community and the police institute in Israel. The Arab community views the police as a hostile and a discriminatory body while the police views the Arab minority as a security threat. This relationship of mistrust negatively impacts the police performance and activity within the Arab community. Therefore, Aman Center aims to narrow the gap between both sides by changing the Arab population’s perception of the police and the police’s perception of the Arab population so that the Arab minority works with and beside the police in order to enjoy more effective and efficient policing services in the future.

:We have three sections

:Research sections

We conduct researches and data collecting about the Arab community with focus on violence acts and the government's activities and programs on this issue. We reflect the reality to both the community and the government.

:Advocacy section

This section conducts meetings and workshops with Arab political, religious, social leaders for taking more responsibility to their communities. We put a special attention to women role in social change.  Also this section makes the same activity with governmental factions to adapt serious programs and steps in debating crimes and violence. Also we focus on the role of religious leaders on social change and conflict resolution.

:The Hub section

The hub prepares professional specific programs in Education, Welfare, Youth, Local government..etc. we hire academic experts to prepare these programs.  We intend to encourage national and local governmental factions to adapt the programs in their work in the field.     

Aman center, which is deeply committed to improving the future of the Arab minority in the State of Israel, is eagerly looking forward to cooperate with organizations and bodies to achieve the above mentioned goals.

Please, do not hesitate to contact us.

Reda Jaber ——– Kamel Rayan

Director of the Aman Center ——– Chairman of the Aman Center