Hadash-Ta’al Party leader MK Ayman Odeh warned that nationwide disruptions would be intensified to protest the rise in crime in the Arab sector during a Sunday interview with The Jerusalem Post.
Odeh’s remarks came as a mass protest convoy demonstrated against the rise in violent crime in the Arab sector. The protest caused road blockage along central highways. Demonstrators then gathered at Jerusalem’s government complex outside the Knesset and the Prime Minister’s Office, leading to further traffic in the city.
“We are disrupting things because we want them to listen to us,” Odeh told the Post.
He added that the next stages would involve an economic boycott, such as halting shopping at malls and using banks.
Odeh said that such boycotts would be good for everyone in Israeli society since “the biggest harm to the economy is crime itself.”
The goal of the disruptions would be “first to save human lives, which is the highest value in Judaism, and second, for the economy to be healthy,” Odeh said.
He elaborated that the effects of the rise in Arab crime have caused “entire families to be destroyed, households to be ruined, communities to be ruined, children left orphaned, and tourism harmed.”
“So even if what we’re doing is economic disruption, the goal is good for everyone,” he told the Post.
“We tell the state: our culture, our education, at home and at school, is successful with 99% of Arab citizens. “Our problem is one percent [of the Arab population].
“You need to deal with the one percent: the crime organizations,” he said.
Arab sector crime spike blamed on Ben-Gvir
The spike in crime in the Arab sector has been attributed by critics to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the police and has held the portfolio since 2022.
According to a December report by the Abraham Initiatives, 2025 was the deadliest year so far for Arab society in Israel.
“The crime rate among Arabs inside the State of Israel exceeds that of Palestinians anywhere else in the world, Odeh said. “I checked crime rates in Yemen, Qatar, and elsewhere over all the years combined, over all the years together, fewer than 250 Arabs were murdered.
“And now, in a single year [2025], more than 250 murdered,” Odeh said.
Ben-Gvir defended the police’s work combating crime during a Sunday morning KAN Reshet Bet interview ahead of the protest. The national security minister praised the police’s work to reduce crime in the Jewish sector.
Odeh told the Post that Ben-Gvir‘s statements “were not true,” remarking that there has been a rise in femicide in the country.
“There is also no doubt that there are two states: there is a state for Jews, and we [the Arab sector] live without police, without a state,” Odeh said.
Odeh said there has been no contact between him and Ben-Gvir.
The national security minister has also partially attributed failure to curb Arab crime to interference from Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara.
“That’s not serious, one should be ashamed of answers like that, honestly,” Odeh said about Ben Gvir’s remarks on the attorney general.
“I’m calling on Arab citizens and Jewish citizens; there is no half-society. We live in one place, in one society, and we must struggle together for a healthy society, without weapons, without criminal organizations,” Odeh concluded.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel sharply criticized Odeh in a social media post on Sunday evening. She said that although he has complained about the state’s role in the rise of Arab crime, he has also called for civil disobedience.
“You cannot cry about a lack of governance in the morning and sabotage police work in the evening. The blood of the victims in the [Arab] sector is also on the hands of those who have turned police officers in the sector into enemies,” Haskel stated.