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<\/a>\n\t\tArab and Jewish protesters demonstrate against crime and government neglect in Tel Aviv\u2019s Habima Square on January 31, 2026. (Charlie Summers\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n
The Sakhnin rally was not the first held by Arabs to protest crime, but it was among the largest, and unlike many previous protests, came as part of what appears to be a uniquely organized and sustained effort to bring public pressure to bear on the government over the issue. Yet like the others, it still went mostly unnoticed by the country\u2019s Jewish majority.<\/p>\n
The Saturday night protest aimed to change that, broadcasting a simple message to Israel\u2019s Jews and specifically the political opposition: You can no longer ignore this, just as you could not ignore the hostage crisis, the judicial overhaul, the cost of living, or any of the other issues that have brought the masses to Tel Aviv\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n
Jamal Zahalka, who heads the High Follow-Up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel, which organized the protest, called Jewish attendance \u201cfully an act of civic solidarity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t \u201cThe war hasn\u2019t extinguished civic solidarity [between Jews and Arabs],\u201d said Zahalka, a former lawmaker for the hardline Balad party. \u201cThere is hope that Jews and Arabs can work together not just against crime, but also on other issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the protest started as a grassroots movement, Zahalka is hoping that by taking the reins and bringing the Arab community\u2019s most burning issue to the Jewish, anti-Netanyahu street, they can gain the kind of wide consensus needed to put real pressure on the government. Saturday night\u2019s rally was a preview for the type of movement that Zahalka is betting can shut down the country in a major, days-long strike backed by both Arabs and Jews.<\/p>\n Looking out toward the crowd at Habima, one saw a disparate mix of Arabic and Hebrew signs emblazoned with slogans implicating the government and law enforcement in the spiraling violence.<\/p>\n In a somewhat surreal union, Arab protesters donned keffiyehs, a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, while handfuls of Jewish protesters waved Israeli flags. Most flags, though, were painted solid black \u2014 a symbol of Arab society\u2019s escalating struggle against crime.<\/p>\n \t \u201cThis is the largest Jewish-Arab protest in Israel\u2019s history; there has been nothing like it in recent memory,\u201d said Thair Abu Ras, a political analyst at the Jerusalem-based Van Leer Institute. \u201cThe strategy now [for Arab leadership] is to make sure that the struggle doesn\u2019t die out, to keep this issue at the top of the Israeli political agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n Sakhnin spark<\/p>\n The current push against crime began in the northern city of Sakhnin, when Ali Zbedat, the owner of a well-known supermarket chain, went public about having been targeted in several shootings near his business, the latest of which was caught on security camera footage.<\/p>\n Last year was the deadliest year for Israel\u2019s Arab minority, with 252 people killed in crime-related violence. The trend has gotten even worse in 2026 so far, with 37 Arab citizens having fallen prey to homicide as of Thursday, including eight people within two days.<\/p>\n \t Most of Arab society views National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as a major part of the problem, insisting the far-right politician\u2019s oversight of police has led to worsening neglect of Arab towns by law enforcement.<\/p>\n Under him, critics say, police have done little to address the stranglehold organized crime has been able to put on Arab towns, instead prioritizing fighting terrorism or lawlessness that spills into Jewish areas.<\/p>\n The result is that in many Arab towns, shop owners are forced to close by sundown, parents are afraid to let their children leave the house out of fear for their lives and lethal shootings occur on a near-daily basis.<\/p>\n \t Homicide rates had already been on the rise before Ben Gvir entered the government, spurred by government policies that allowed underworld crime to proliferate in Arab towns, according to experts. Under him, critics say, the problem has gone from bad to unthinkable.<\/p>\n In 2023, Ben Gvir\u2019s first year, the murder rate more than doubled, from 116 to 245. It dipped slightly in 2024 before reaching new heights last year.<\/p>\n Law enforcement is aware of the scourge and frequently touts its efforts to get guns \u201coff the Arab street,\u201d but has not seen much success. In official statements, police also expressed frustration that intimidation of residents by criminals has hampered their efforts to combat violence in Arab areas.<\/p>\n \t Underworld syndicates have indeed come to dominate neighborhoods and sometimes entire towns, striking fear into residents that going to the police will put a target on their backs.<\/p>\n This intimidation is what made Zbedat\u2019s move to shutter his franchise so notable. After he and his son Ibrahim announced the closure of their shops until further notice, other businessmen followed suit. Without meaning to, Zbedat sparked a general strike in the city, which had suffered a spate of near-nightly shootings by gangs seeking to extort shop owners by scaring them into paying protection fees.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is something that\u2019s being organized from the grassroots,\u201d said Abu Ras. \u201cArab leadership helped organize, but they stepped in only after we started to see grassroots organizing, especially in Sakhnin.\u201d<\/p>\n \t The effort has become a major driving force in Arab politics. In the wake of the Sakhnin rally, the four main Arab parties involved in Knesset politics, Balad, Islamist Ra\u2019am, secularist Ta\u2019al and Communist Hadash, agreed to explore reuniting for upcoming elections, a move which could give Arab politicians significant sway in the political arena.<\/p>\n Yousef Makladeh, a prominent pollster who heads the Statnet research firm, told The Times of Israel that in the shadow of the Gaza war, Arab parties had focused less on crime, which he described as \u201cthe most painful issue\u201d for the minority.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, they focused much more on the two-state solution, on peace,\u201d he said. But this approach was out of sync with most Arab citizens, many of whom feel they are risking their lives whenever they leave the house.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, this doesn\u2019t mean that the Arab public wasn\u2019t against the Gaza War,\u201d Makladeh added. \u201cBut the moment that there was a ceasefire, the issue of achieving peace was immediately knocked lower in favor of the war against crime and gangs.\u201d<\/p>\n According to the pollster, it is no coincidence that the initial spark came from Sakhnin, a political powerhouse in Arab society.<\/p>\n In the last elections, 68 percent of the city\u2019s residents turned out to vote, markedly higher than Arab society\u2019s average 53% turnout.<\/p>\n \t The sudden shutdown of the city put pressure on Knesset lawmakers and communal leaders to act, Makladeh said.<\/p>\n This is when the High Follow-Up Committee, Arab society\u2019s leading umbrella organization, stepped in, calling a general strike throughout the country. Arab cities and towns shut down nationwide, and tens of thousands flocked to Sakhnin for a massive march against crime.<\/p>\n Since then, daily protests have been taking place in Arab locales. In Tamra, worried parents marched to a police station after a shooting rattled a nearby elementary school, Arab students have been staging campus demonstrations and towns rocked by homicide are now striking the day after.<\/p>\n However, getting those protests to spark government action, Zahalka seems to have concluded, will mean bringing them outside of the Arab community. Unlike his erstwhile political colleague Mansour Abbas, who has sought gains for Arabs by offering his Ra\u2019am party as a potential government partner, Zahalka is forging a different path, seeking to partner alongside those with the power to pressure the government from the outside.<\/p>\n Forcing the government\u2019s hand<\/p>\n The Tel Aviv rally marked the first attempted foray into the Jewish mainstream by the High Follow-Up Committee, whose newly minted chief is now striving to turn the organization into a major political player.<\/p>\n Zahalka was elected as the organization\u2019s chairman in November. He is the former head of Balad, whose members have been vocal in identifying with the Palestinian national movement, rejecting the Israeli left.<\/p>\n In the last election, Balad failed to cross the Knesset threshold, depriving the community of some four seats. Should the Joint List of Arab parties reunite, the faction will likely be part of a political juggernaut that could play kingmaker in coalition negotiations, giving it important leverage.<\/p>\n While the Saturday demonstration was focused on crime, Zahalka saw it as a way to help jumpstart Arab political participation after two years of relative silence during the war. \u201cCivic solidarity,\u201d he said, can extend to other issues as well that critics say have been neglected by the government, like education, welfare and town planning.<\/p>\n \t \u201cWe want to leverage the Arab public against crime. This works in two directions, it is first off to exert pressure on criminal organizations. Second, to send a message to the government that there is an entire public crying out,\u201d he told The Times of Israel this week.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we aren\u2019t deluding ourselves. To try and speak to this government is like speaking to a wall,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Instead of trying to work political levers, Zahalka is hoping to \u201cexert pressure and force the government to change its policy.\u201d One of the ways to do this, \u201cis to enlist the help of Jewish society in Israel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Thus, the former Balad chairman, who didn\u2019t shrink from haranguing Israel\u2019s liberal opposition during his years in party politics, found himself onstage leading that same crowd in a Hebrew chant: \u201cEnough of the violence.\u201d<\/p>\n \t But Zahalka stressed that he did not hide his politics from the crowd. \u201cDuring the demonstration, I also talked about Gaza, a Palestinian state and an end to the occupation \u2014 and I was met with applause,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is a demonstration that we can build on.\u201d<\/p>\n Since he took over as chairman, Zahalka has been attempting to expand the High Follow-Up Committee\u2019s prominence in Jewish society.<\/p>\n On his watch, the organization successfully convinced several Israeli universities to issue statements supporting the Tel Aviv protest and is moving toward Hebrew-language outreach on social media.<\/p>\n His long-term goal is to spearhead a three-day general strike over crime that includes not just Arab society, but Jewish organizations as well. He even hopes to enlist the participation of the Histadrut, Israel\u2019s largest trade federation, but was uncertain about whether this would be feasible.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is major significance that Jews came to demonstrate under the banner of the High Follow-Up Committee,\u201d Zahalka said. \u201cWhy did they come? Out of a sense of responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Elad, a Jewish protester from Rehovot, seemed to match Zahalka\u2019s assessment. He said his connection to Israel\u2019s Arab minority is not very strong, but stressed that \u201cwe need equality, rights for all citizens. They\u2019re citizens like any other.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking to The Times of Israel in Tel Aviv, he drew a parallel between law enforcement\u2019s failure to stem crime and the army\u2019s inability to fend off the Hamas-led attacks on October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have a government that is abandoning all of its citizens, which allowed for the murder of over 1,000 citizens on October 7 and has allowed for the murder of over 700 Arab citizens in crime,\u201d he said, referring to the number of Arab homicide victims over the past three years.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, these are different, but they\u2019re connected by the same thread \u2014 the government does not care.\u201d<\/p>\n Rallying apart<\/p>\n The issue of crime in Arab society hasn\u2019t gone entirely unnoticed by Jewish Israelis.<\/p>\n A number of Jewish-Arab groups, including Standing Together and the Abraham Initiatives, have attempted to raise awareness and protest over the issue, including holding rallies in Tel Aviv that featured mock funerals, and \u201cblood\u201d-spattered activists demonstrating in front of Netanyahu\u2019s office.<\/p>\n President Isaac Herzog has also made the issue a top item on his agenda, calling it a national emergency. Last month, he went north to Sakhnin<\/a> to meet with Zbedat, the strike\u2019s initiator, and later Qasem Awad, a bereaved father who has become especially vocal on crime after the violent death of his son Abdallah, who was shot dead in early February last year.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tThousands of people attend a protest against violence in the Arab community in Tel Aviv on January 31, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tThousands attend a protest about organized crime in the Arab community, in Tel Aviv. January 31, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tGrocery store owner Ali Zbedat, who helped spark a general strike in Arab society over the issue of violent crime, speaks to a crowd at Tel Aviv protest on January 31, 2026. (Charlie Summers\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tThousands attend a protest against organized crime in the Arab community in Tel Aviv. January 31, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tDemonstrators carry a banner bearing pictures of five Arab Israelis who were shot dead a day earlier, as they protest against their killing in the village of Yafa, west of Nazareth, on June 9, 2023. (Ahmad Gharabli\/AFP)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tA child stands in front of a large banner that reads, \u2018Together we will overcome violence, crime and extortion. Sakhnin answers the call,\u2019 during a protest against the violent crime wave sweeping Arab society in Sakhnin, northern Israel on January 22, 2026. (Charlie Summers\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tShops in the northern city of Sakhnin remain shuttered during a nationwide strike in Arab society over police handling of violent crime on January 22, 2026. (Charlie Summers\/Times of Israel)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tMembers of the \u2018Standing Together\u2019 movement protest outside Israel\u2019s national police headquarters in Jerusalem against rising violence in Arab communities in Israel, November 23, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tArab-Israeli community leader Jamal Zahalka speaks at a protest against violence in the Arab community, in Tel Aviv on January 31, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel\/Flash90)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\n\t\tA woman holds a sign in which the phrase \u2018human beings\u2019 is written in Hebrew and Arabic, at a protest calling for action to stop organized crime in the Arab community, in Tel Aviv on January 31, 2026. (Avshalom Sassoni\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n