Arab, Jewish protesters turn out in record numbers for Tel Aviv anti-crime protest

Tens of thousands of Arab and Jewish protesters turned out in Tel Aviv Saturday night for a massive rally, accusing the government of neglecting its Arab citizens and allowing violence to run rampant in the community.

The unprecedented demonstration in Habima Square briefly united Israel’s overwhelmingly Jewish anti-government protest movement with the country’s Arab citizens, increasingly vocal in the face of pervasive crime.

The crowd was a highly unusual mix of Arab families and regular protesters against the current right-wing government. Organizers estimated that some 40,000 Jewish and Arab protesters were in attendance.

Near the front of the demonstration, a grey-haired man wearing a shirt from the reservist protest group “Brothers in Arms” stood near a woman with a keffiyeh draped over her shoulders.

Further into the crowd, a group of teenagers could be seen chanting in Arabic: “Hey police, hey police, Arab blood isn’t cheap,” to a rhythm set by Jewish drummers.

Protesters waved black flags, which have become the chief symbol of the burgeoning movement against crime in Arab communities. Other signs read in English, “Arab Lives Matter,” in an homage to the US-based Black Lives Matter movement.

The rally was organized by the High Follow-Up Committee, the leading body for Arab citizens of Israel, in an effort to capture the attention of the Jewish public and win support for Arab society’s struggle against organized crime.

The struggle has picked up over the past two weeks, after a local strike in the northern city of Sakhnin, sparked by a businessowner whose shops had been targeted in extortion-related shootings, spread out to Arab locales throughout the country.

Speaking from onstage, Sakhnin’s mayor Mazen Ghnaim said that “we want personal security,” after 27 Arab citizens fell victim to homicide in the past month alone. Last year was the deadliest year on record for Arab society in Israel, with 252 killed in crime-related violence.

Many demonstrators came to Tel Aviv on buses chartered by municipal authorities in Arab cities and towns. The protest followed the same route as most anti-government and hostage deal protests in recent years, beginning outside the Tel Aviv Museum and ending at Habima Square.

Police blocked off roads and erected metal fencing around the perimeter of Habima Square, but were not entirely successful in preventing counterprotesters from infiltrating the area. One disgruntled man came into the area waving an Israeli flag and arguing with attendees, before he was escorted away by a police officer.

Later on Saturday night, after most protesters had dispersed, right-wing activists came to harass rallygoers. Police said they arrested an Arab demonstrator, a 26-year-old from Baqa al-Gharbiyye, allegedly for threatening to pepper-spray one of the counterprotesters.

Though Arab and liberal Jewish MKs attended the protest, no current politicians spoke from the main stage, since organizers sought to keep the demonstration at a distance from party politics.

Instead, High Follow-Up Committee chairman Jamal Zahalka spoke, accusing the state of “fueling crime organizations and criminals who murder, extort and threaten.”

The speech marked a rare instance in which Zahalka, a former Balad MK, addressed a large Jewish audience. He even led the crowd in a Hebrew chant:“Enough of the violence.”

Zahalka called the massive demonstration a “cry against crime and against the government feeding it” and declared that “it is time to cancel the silent agreement between the police and criminal organizations.”

“The false and racist argument that this [crime] is a cultural problem is not new,” he said, claiming the same argument has been used against Mizrahi Jews in Israel, as well as Black Americans.

“This argument collapses with a simple comparison… socially and culturally, we [Arab Israelis] are very similar to the West Bank and Jordan, where the number of murders is less than one for every 100,000 people,” he said. Meanwhile, among Israel’s Arab citizens, the homicide rate is over 15 for every 100,000 people.

Zahalka blamed law enforcement for the sky-high rate, accusing police of practicing a “policy of deadly restraint” when it comes to crime in Arab society.

He also decried National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir as the “minister of crime,” and was met with enthusiastic agreement from the crowd, which jeered the far-right politician’s name.

Zahalka ended his speech with a series of demands, urging law enforcement to break up criminal organizations, round up guns from off the streets and solve murder cases in Arab society.

Speaking to The Times of Israel, The Democrats lawmaker Gilad Kariv said Arab and liberal Jewish groups are united in ousting the current coalition, particularly National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees law enforcement.

“We have a joint demand from [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to fire [Itamar] Ben Gvir, and because we know that he’s not going to do it, our demand is to replace this racist government,” Kariv said.

“If a mother in Umm al-Fahm or Sakhnin feels [too] insecure to allow her child to go to the playground in the afternoon, it means we cannot be safe and feel secure here in Tel Aviv,” he continued.

Meanwhile, Hadash-Ta’al chairman Ayman Odeh said that the protest must serve as a “turning point” to unite Jewish and Arab Israelis.

“This should be a turning point, another important building block for the common struggles of Jewish and Arab society,” he told The Times of Israel while picking up trash left in the plaza after the demonstration.

Odeh said the demonstration could mark the start of Arab participation in protests against Israel’s current right-wing government.

“It is also an opportunity to call on Arab citizens to partake in protests against the coup,” referring to the judicial overhaul, and more broadly, the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition. “This is a common struggle for all of us.”