In October 2025, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir introduced a bill that would redefine organized crime groups as terror organizations. The bill was approved last week by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation. It was presented by Knesset Committee for National Security chairman MK Tzvika Fogel, with the backing of Minister Ben-Gvir—both members of the far-right Otzma Yehudit Party—and is aimed primarily at Arab crime organizations.
On paper, the proposal seeks to give law enforcement authorities stronger tools to combat violent crime. In practice, it represents a grave and dangerous error that risks further eroding trust between Arab citizens and the state, while doing little to actually curb crime.
For years, the Abraham Initiatives has worked to address violent crime in Arab towns and cities, advocating for effective policing and public awareness of its devastating social toll. Indeed, we are fully aware of the urgency: organized crime in Arab communities has reached catastrophic levels, claiming hundreds of lives and sowing fear and despair. Yet this proposal—to treat criminal gangs as if they were ideologically driven terrorists—offers a false and harmful substitute for real, professional law enforcement.
The proposed amendment would extend the Counter-Terrorism Law to cover organized crime. It would empower the police and security agencies—including the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency)—to use surveillance and investigative tools designed for national-security threats, such as freezing assets, restricting bank accounts, and imposing much harsher sentences.
Israel does indeed need stronger enforcement. The police require more personnel, better training, and updated investigative tools. But redefining criminal groups as terrorists is not the solution. Terror laws were crafted to address ideologically motivated violence—to prevent politically or religiously inspired attacks. Organized crime, by contrast, is driven by economic motives: greed, not ideology. Mixing the two undermines the coherence of criminal law and introduces draconian powers where they do not belong.
Deepening the crisis of trust between Israeli Arabs and law enforcement
The proposal also risks deepening the crisis of trust between Arab citizens and law enforcement. For decades, many Arab residents have felt abandoned by the state, living under conditions where the police failed to protect them. Now, instead of rebuilding trust through community policing and effective crime-fighting, the government proposes to brand Arab criminals as terrorists. The signal this sends is devastating: it paints Arab society itself as a security threat.
Effective policing depends on the trust and cooperation of the public. When citizens fear that their relatives or neighbors may be treated as “terror suspects,” they will not share information with the police. This will make investigations harder, not easier. A policy that alienates the very communities most affected by crime cannot succeed.
Beyond its political symbolism, the bill carries serious implications for civil rights. Under Israel’s Counter-Terrorism Law (2016), suspects face sweeping limitations: looser evidentiary standards, reduced procedural protections, and much heavier penalties—even for marginal involvement. Applying this framework to ordinary crime would allow authorities to detain and prosecute people under extreme conditions, without due process or meaningful judicial oversight.
Such measures may appear decisive in the short term, but they corrode the rule of law. The “shortcut” of labeling criminals as terrorists undermines the basic principle of criminal justice—that exceptional powers must rest on concrete evidence, not political convenience.
Israel can and must combat organized crime effectively. The way forward is not through semantic or legal acrobatics but through action: filling vacant police positions, training officers in modern investigative methods, improving coordination with the prosecution, and investing in social and economic programs that address the roots of crime.
Equipping the police with additional new tools may be necessary, but these must be designed through the Police Ordinance and closely supervised by the State Attorney’s Office—not by turning every gang member into a supposed “enemy of the state,” and certainly not to advance political or ideological goals such as tagging Israel’s Arab citizens as the enemy.
And finally, at its heart, crime in Arab society is a social, economic, and governance failure—not a national security threat. Conflating the two will only make both problems worse.
The writer is CEO of the Abraham Initiatives