Every day, Israeli Arab citizens are murdered, wounded, or threatened. In the last decade, more than 1,600 people have been killed, murdered in cold blood, without mercy, including many innocent women and children. The number of murders increases every month. Since the beginning of 2026, approximately fifty people have already been brutally killed.
Appallingly, armed gangs are terrorizing business owners, farmers, and restaurant owners. These criminal organizations are involved in numerous sectors: arms and drug trafficking, smuggling, prostitution, cattle rustling, extortion, and protection racketeering. The impoverished are forced to turn to loan sharks, pay exorbitant interest rates, and fear bloody reprisals if they default on their debts.
Criminals threaten and exert strong pressure on municipalities, and take over development and construction projects through violent means.
The state of war, the high cost of living, and unemployment further aggravate family problems and plunge the country into anguish, internal insecurity, and uncertainty.
Faced with a lack of authority and leadership, hate speech is also infiltrating political parties, and red lines are being crossed daily. Extremists of all stripes, right and left, are dictating the agenda. Young Jewish delinquents in the territories are sowing terror in Palestinian villages and committing heinous attacks. These irresponsible and dangerous acts complicate the missions of the IDF and could incite reprisals against Jewish settlement residents, the majority of whom respect the law and army directives.
During street demonstrations, clashes multiply and anarchists and vandals take advantage to sow chaos.
Despite all its efforts to eradicate the scourge, the police remain powerless, lacking both motivation and personnel. The country's top cop, Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister of Public Security, turns a blind eye, contributing to the politicization of the police force and playing the mediocre populist. Violence is also rampant on the roads. Car accidents are more frequent than in any democratic state. On television, verbal abuse prevails. But it doesn't matter… ratings skyrocket, advertisers increase their revenue, and they rejoice.
This intolerable situation has persisted for several years. It is time to act, to take action on all fronts. This scourge encompasses numerous national and socio-economic problems that have allowed criminal gangs to flourish.
Undeniably, Israeli society is in a state of perpetual war, with no peaceful solution in sight. It is torn apart on every level and in every sphere. It is complex and complicated, and above all, immature. There is a clear lack of tolerance and civility, of education and culture. Civic values are ignored, even in schools. Unfortunately, the majority of political representatives no longer serve as role models. Personal and party interests prevail over those of the state. In these circumstances, citizens are bewildered, frightened, and desperate.
The Arab minority represents more than twenty percent of the Israeli population. Certainly, the majority is loyal to the State and integrates into the various activities of the country, particularly in education, health, and sports.
We observe that crime spares Christian Arabs and Druze and spreads mainly in Arab-Muslim villages and among Bedouins.
Their representatives in the Knesset, like their religious leaders, have failed in civic education and human and women's rights, ignoring the plight of the people and focusing their political agenda on resolving the Palestinian problem. Recently, Arab members of parliament have organized numerous street protests, but these have occurred under pressure from their compatriots and as part of a campaign for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
As a result, a large part of the Israeli Arab villages still lives in miserable conditions and the local youth find themselves without a future, break the patriarchal chains, no longer respect their parents and rebel by joining banditry.
To combat this scourge, the government has a duty to appoint a powerful coordinator tasked with coordinating activities with all ministries and internal security services, particularly the army and the Shin Bet. The overall effort must address the collection of illegal weapons, a large portion of which originates from IDF bases, and combat financial crime to cut off all sources of funding. It is necessary to increase the number of police officers and provide them with adequate salaries. Targeted operations, such as those conducted daily by the IDF against terrorist networks, should be adopted, and, above all, perpetrators should be swiftly brought to justice and sentenced severely.
All Israelis must prove their loyalty to the State of Israel by fulfilling their civic duty and contributing to the national effort, particularly through public service, if they are unable to serve in the military.
Many challenges remain, but the authorities' mission is not impossible. The scourge of violence is not inevitable, but it is becoming the Israelis' number one enemy. Let's take action, then, because time is running out and the dangers are ever-present.
Without draconian and immediate measures, the time bomb of criminality in the Israeli-Arab community will explode sooner or later against the Jewish population.
