Are Israel’s Hostage Square protesters being repurposed for a red-green push?

Photo: Flash90

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launching solidarity protests with the Arab sector, have Israel’s left-wing demonstrators found a new cause to rally around? If so, what impact could this budding alliance have on Israel’s upcoming 2026 elections?

Some 40,000 protesters gathered in Tel Aviv on Motzaei Shabbos to demand government action to stem the rising murder rate in some predominantly Arab-populated cities. More than 250 Arabs were killed in 2025 — the vast majority by gun violence. The trend has continued into 2026, with at least 15 Arabs murdered in January alone.

At the demonstration, Jewish and Arab demonstrators waved black flags — a symbol of the protest movement that began in 2019 as anti-Netanyahu marches and later evolved into rallies against proposed judicial reforms and the government’s handling of hostage negotiations.

Their concerns about the soaring Arab death toll — and the very real possibility that violence could spill into Jewish neighborhoods in Israel’s mixed cities — are genuine. Yet the timing of their new solidarity, ahead of the impending elections, points to a deeper agenda. The protest movement is being redeployed to the next stage — an Israeli version of the Red-Green alliance between progressive left groups (Reds) and Islamist factions (Greens), to achieve their long-term goal of toppling Netanyahu and electing a center-left government in his place.

Many forces are aligning to put this program into action.

Just last week, the Knesset’s four Arab parties agreed to run on a Joint List in the next election. On cue, new polls came out showing that the Joint List could become Israel’s third-largest political party. For now, the only opposition party leader to say he would invite an Arab party into his coalition is Yair Golan of the far-left Democratic Party. Once the electoral math becomes clear, the temptation for other left and center-left parties to join forces with the Arabs could be too strong to resist.

The same week, President Yitzhak Herzog, whose sympathies lie with the center-left, met with the head of the Arab side of the protest movement in Sakhnin. Herzog declared that the fight against crime and violence in Arab society was a “moral obligation” that “must be at the very top of [Israel’s] national priorities.”

Declarations of moral obligation or designations of national priorities, sincere as they sound, are just words. The battle against pure evil and immorality requires resolute action.

The Institute for National Security Studies, a center-left think tank, notes an increase in mafia-like activities by clans, gangs, and organized crime organizations that intimidate Arab society through protection and extortion rackets. The Arab sector is awash in illegal weapons, some smuggled in from Jordan and others stolen from IDF bases and police storehouses.

For now, let’s set aside the idea that the Arab public needs to practice the Muslim version of cheshbon hanefesh, or muhasabat al-nafs (self-accountability), rather than blaming Israel.

While Sakhnin is burning, the Israeli justice system is preoccupied with trivial and petty personal pursuits.

In March, the High Court of Justice will convene to consider Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s demand that the government dismiss Itamar Ben-Gvir as national security minister. This position gives Ben-Gvir authority over the Israel Police. Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu are convenient scapegoats, but the upsurge in Arab violence has little to do with Ben-Gvir or Bibi, whom the attorney general handcuffs at every step.

The Jewish Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), a center-right think tank, says that while the government and the national security minister bear “significant responsibility,” the attorney general, as Israel’s chief law enforcement officer, is also responsible. Netanyahu has ordered Baharav-Miara to convene a weekly meeting of the national task force for combating serious crime, first established in 2006. Still, she has yet to comply, citing budgetary and personnel constraints.

The JISS strongly recommends that Baharav-Miara declare violence in the Arab sector a state of emergency, allowing the government to fully mobilize and empower the Shin Bet, Israel Police, and the Israel Tax Authority to act against violent crime organizations, just as they do with Islamist terrorist organizations.

None of this will solve the problem overnight, but neither will the ritual Saturday night demonstrations in Tel Aviv, nor the ongoing standoff between the government and the attorney general. Both must end for Israel and its Arab sector to enjoy some real peace and quiet.

29%

The percentage of Israeli respondents polled by Channel 12 who thought that Israel won the war in Gaza.

Some 54% said they believed Israel did not win, while 17% were not sure.

Regime Change at the Fed?

President Trump is hoping that Kevin Warsh, his pick to replace Jay Powell as Federal Reserve Board chair when Powell’s term ends in May, will make America’s interest rates lower again.

Warsh, 55, a Fed governor under presidents Bush and Obama, is Jewish, born in Albany, New York, and is married to Jane Lauder, daughter of World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder.

Warsh supports lower rates and has called for “regime change” at the Fed — disruptive language that appeals to Trump. But he may not meet Trump’s lofty expectations.

The Fed chair is just one of 12 votes on the panel that decides rates, and he cannot fire or hire others, so he will have to lead by persuasion and consensus-building, not by coercion.

Outgoing chair Powell already cut rates three times since Warsh told Fox News last July that the Fed had lost credibility on interest rates, leaving Warsh with less room to maneuver. Financial analysts suggest he might make two or three quarter-point cuts in 2026, but most analysts expect 30-year mortgage rates to remain at or above 6% for the foreseeable future.

Warsh might end up provoking Trump by proposing that the Fed factor in government spending and the money supply when setting rates, at a time when US debt is headed north to $40 trillion.

Save the Date: November 3, 2026

Wisconsin voters are preparing for an important vote in November’s midterms — a simple yes-or-no decision on a constitutional amendment that would bar state and local governments from ordering houses of worship to close during a state of emergency, including public health crises. If it passes, it would prevent a repeat of the state’s “Safer at Home” order from March 2020, which limited public gatherings to fewer than ten people in a room. The state’s Supreme Court struck down that order two months later.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1098)