Arab News | Mansour Abbas — the most unorthodox politician

There are hardly any positives in the fragmentation of the Israeli political system and the widespread distribution of votes among many parties on election day.

The very fact that opinion polls forecast at least 10 parties will enter the next Knesset — none of them commanding more than 24 seats, at best — will predictably lead either to prolonged, unsavory, and protracted negotiations to form a coalition government, or to a prolonged political stalemate.

If there is a silver lining it is that in a time of need, desperation even, to form a coalition, at least one of the Arab parties, and perhaps more, that represent Palestinians, are likely to be included in the next government.

Recent developments mean that candidates who mainly represent Arab-Palestinians, who comprise about 20 percent of the Israeli population, will run on two lists in an attempt to minimize fragmentation of the Arab vote.

While the three more secular parties will run on one of these umbrella lists, the emergence of Ra’am, the acronym for the Hebrew name of the United Arab List, deserves special attention, in particular its leader, Mansour Abbas.

Although it was founded as an Islamist-conservative party whose power base lies mainly in the south of the country among the more religious and traditional elements of the Arab community, Ra’am has for many years maintained strong links with the southern branch of the Islamic Movement and the Bedouin community in the Negev, which is regarded as more moderate and pragmatic.

Relatively speaking, the party is a newcomer, having first fielded candidates in the 1996 general election. Abbas has led the party since 2018 and emerged as probably the shrewdest and most unconventional figure in Israeli politics. He is courageous and characterized as an out-of-the-box thinker and political operator, in the nicest possible way. Under his leadership, Ra’am has become one of the most pragmatic parties in the Israeli political arena, without compromising its core values — a difficult trick to pull off.

Mansour Abbas astutely reads the political map and understands the state of mind of the parties

Yossi Mekelberg

He is a strong advocate of a two-state solution and critical of the occupation, but was quick to condemn the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, visited the families of the Israeli hostages and was very active in efforts to secure their release.

Over the past few weeks, in preparation for the elections in October for the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, Abbas has pulled two rabbits out of the hat, both of them aimed at overcoming resistance to the inclusion of his party in the next coalition government, most likely one formed by parties currently in opposition.

Firstly, he announced that his party would separate from the religious council, the Shoura, with which it has been linked and establish its own institutions. He declared that the party would move toward becoming a purely civic party, with separate institutions.

His second gambit is even more intriguing: negotiations with Yoav Segalovitz, a former police assistant commissioner and former deputy national security minister, who is currently a member of the Knesset for the centrist Yesh Atid party, about it joining Ra’am as No. 2 on its party list.

For the leader of a party that has for so long been identified with its Islamic roots, the very idea of joining forces with a prominent Jewish politician who defines himself as a Zionist is radical — in the best possible way. It tests the waters in both communities to see whether such an arrangement might be palatable to them.

The idea is not necessarily to attract large numbers of Jewish voters, but to give the party legitimacy for the day after the election without deterring traditional voters from supporting it. If successful it could be a turning point, not only for the formation of the next coalition government but also, in the longer term, for normalizing the participation of parties that mainly represent Arab Palestinians in the Israeli government. It could also encourage other parties to include more members and candidates from both communities.

Being a Palestinian citizen of Israel means having to deal, even if not formally, with the expectation within Jewish society that one must prove one’s loyalty, a burden that someone born Jewish does not have to carry.

It is even more difficult for political representatives, who are often assumed, a priori, not to accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. The majority of Jewish Israelis never seem to think that there is also an onus on them to make the minority feel like an integral part of society.

By discriminating against more than one-fifth of the population — sometimes in law, more often through social behavior and custom — they alienate Arabs, despite the important and constructive role they play in Israeli society.

It is even more difficult for a party that has been closely associated with Islam and the Islamic establishment as an advisory council. Mind you, Jewish society accepts, albeit sometimes reluctantly, that elected members of the Knesset from ultra-Orthodox parties are instructed by their own unelected councils of sages on some of the most crucial issues facing the country, including during times of war, and their elected representatives must abide by those decisions.

Abbas, meanwhile, has managed to combine studying and practicing dentistry with serving as an imam at his mosque. Yet, by choosing to sever the party’s institutional ties with the Shura Council, he appears to recognize that this link has opened him and his party up to accusations, baseless as they are, of being an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as accusations from political rivals on the right that he supports Hamas.

Whatever the implications of his move, it could take some of the sting out of those accusations, although it certainly will not end them.

Similarly, the search by Abbas for a Jewish-Zionist political partner is significant, especially someone with considerable experience in policing, at a time when one of the major issues facing Arab communities in Israel is the horrific increase in crime, particularly homicide.

When Segalovitz was deputy minister of national security, the number of killings within this community went down significantly but increased after Itamar Ben-Gvir assumed responsibility for the ministry. This is not a coincidence; it reflects the difference between someone who cares about the safety and well-being of all of Israel’s citizens and someone who does not consider it an issue should the victims happen to be Arabs.

Abbas astutely reads the political map and understands the state of mind of the parties that mainly represent the Jewish population far better than vice versa. Yet he is taking a risk; he could lose some support among his traditional voters who might view his approach as going too far in an attempt to please his Jewish counterparts.

Yet, come election day he will likely be in great demand, assuming his party performs well. He is making it very hard to ignore the mini revolution he is leading in Israeli politics, which will benefit his supporters and, with it, Israel as a democracy for all.