Why a Palestinian protest in Tel Aviv exposed the limits of Israeli solidarity
Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel attend a protest against rising violent crime in Palestinian society in Tel Aviv, 31 January 2026
Samah Watad writes in +972 on 4 February 2026:
She stopped me as I was filming and said, almost casually, “Why are you saying Palestinians? Most of the people here don’t identify as Palestinians.”
We were standing in the middle of Tel Aviv on Saturday night, during one of the largest protests that Palestinian citizens of Israel have held in recent memory: a mass demonstration — described by local commentators as “historic” — against the organized crime that has been tearing through our communities with impunity. Tens of thousands of people (organizers estimated as many as 100,000) had come to demand the most basic and urgent right to live without fear.
And yet, at that moment, the protest’s central contradiction surfaced. Even here, at a march against our own deaths and abandonment by the government, naming ourselves as Palestinians felt disruptive, something in need of correction.
People had driven for hours from the Galilee in the north and the Naqab in the south to make their voices heard in the heart of the Israeli metropolis. They came with the knowledge that this government is more comfortable watching Palestinians kill one another than taking responsibility for dismantling the crime networks operating freely in our towns.
The presence of bereaved families made that indifference impossible to ignore, at least for those who were there. These were parents, siblings, and children whose lives had been shattered by violence, who still chose to stand in public and demand accountability.
Among them was Khitam Abu Fanni, the mother of Firas Abu Fanni, who was killed at the age of 29 last September, leaving behind a wife and a seven-month-old baby. Standing on stage, she spoke through tears: “Firas was my firstborn. He was my backbone. He had so many dreams.” Each time she repeated her demand — to find her son’s killer, to deliver justice — the crowd fell silent in the presence of her raw devastation.