i24 News – Israeli Supreme Court Justice George Kara retired Sunday, and shared the challenges he faced as the only Arab judge on the country’s top court.

“During these past few years, the state and society in Israel have experienced polarizing political and social processes that have widened the schism between Arabs and Jews,” the veteran judge said during his retirement ceremony.

“As an Arab minority justice, that period wasn’t easy for me,” Kara said, “but true to the words of the passage in the Book of Deuteronomy, I expressed my opinion and as I used to sometimes say to my law clerks -it’s good to be part of the majority opinion, but it’s not terrible to be in the minority.”

While addressing rampant violence in Israel, Kara noted it was like a contagious disease.

“It’s more like a disease nesting in a human’s body,” Kara said, “As it does within society. It’s contagious when the violence crosses sectors. As long as the immune system is strong, crime is low and can be controlled, but lately, society’s immune system is weak.”

“In the long term, we should invest in education and tolerance, dialogue and nonviolence. But until those seeds can grow and in order to allow them the right conditions, uncompromising enforcement is required immediately.”

Kara handled hundreds of criminal cases, heading the panel of district court judges that convicted former Israeli president Moshe Katsav of rape in 2010.

He retired at the age of 70, which is the mandatory retirement age for Israeli judges.