{"id":281020,"date":"2026-02-08T19:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/281020\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T19:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T19:12:07","slug":"odeh-disruptions-will-grow-until-state-tackles-arab-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/281020\/","title":{"rendered":"Odeh: Disruptions will grow until state tackles Arab crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hadash-Ta\u2019al Party leader MK Ayman Odeh<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Odeh’s remarks came as a mass protest convoy<\/a> demonstrated against the rise in violent crime in the Arab sector. The protest caused road blockage along central highways. Demonstrators then gathered at Jerusalem\u2019s government complex outside the Knesset and the Prime Minister\u2019s Office, leading to further traffic in the city.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are disrupting things because we want them to listen to us,\u201d Odeh<\/a> told the Post.<\/p>\n

He added that the next stages would involve an economic boycott, such as halting shopping at malls and using banks.<\/p>\n

Odeh said that such boycotts would be good for everyone in Israeli society since \u201cthe biggest harm to the economy is crime itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MKMK Ayman Odeh speaks during a plenum session at the assembly hall of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, January 12, 2026. (credit: CHAIM GOLDBERG\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n

The goal of the disruptions would be \u201cfirst to save human lives, which is the highest value in Judaism, and second, for the economy to be healthy,\u201d Odeh said.<\/p>\n

He elaborated that the effects of the rise in Arab crime have caused \u201centire families to be destroyed, households to be ruined, communities to be ruined, children left orphaned, and tourism harmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo even if what we\u2019re doing is economic disruption, the goal is good for everyone,\u201d he told the Post.<\/p>\n

“We tell the state: our culture, our education, \u00a0at home and at school, is successful with 99% of Arab citizens. \u201cOur problem is one percent [of the Arab population].<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to deal with the one percent: the crime organizations,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Arab sector crime spike blamed on Ben-Gvir<\/p>\n

The spike in crime in the Arab sector has been attributed by critics to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir<\/a>, who oversees the police and has held the portfolio since 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to a December report by the Abraham Initiatives, 2025 was the deadliest year so far for Arab society in Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe crime rate among Arabs inside the State of Israel exceeds that of Palestinians anywhere else in the world, Odeh said. \u201cI checked crime rates in Yemen, Qatar, and elsewhere over all the years combined, over all the years together, fewer than 250 Arabs were murdered.<\/p>\n

“And now, in a single year [2025], more than 250 murdered,” Odeh said.<\/p>\n

Ben-Gvir defended the police\u2019s work combating crime during a Sunday morning KAN Reshet Bet interview ahead of the protest. The national security minister praised the police\u2019s work to reduce crime in the Jewish sector.<\/p>\n

Odeh told the Post that Ben-Gvir\u2018s statements \u201cwere not true,\u201d remarking that there has been a rise in femicide in the country.<\/p>\n

“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,\u201d Odeh said.<\/p>\n

Odeh said there has been no contact between him and Ben-Gvir.<\/p>\n

The national security minister has also partially attributed failure to curb Arab crime to interference from Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not serious, one should be ashamed of answers like that, honestly,\u201d Odeh said about Ben Gvir\u2019s remarks on the attorney general.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 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,\u201d Odeh concluded.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou 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,\u201d Haskel stated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hadash-Ta\u2019al Party leader MK Ayman Odeh warned that nationwide disruptions would be intensified to protest the rise in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[66633,112849,51135,85,1037,46,25914,837,3794,14406,43,52,71157],"class_list":["post-281020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-arab-israeli","tag-arabs","tag-ayman-odeh","tag-il","tag-interview","tag-israel","tag-israeli-arabs","tag-itamar-ben-gvir","tag-jerusalem","tag-knesset","tag-news","tag-protests","tag-sharren-haskel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}