In May 2021, Ra’am Party leader Mansour Abbas was intensely in talks with Yair Lapid, leader of Yesh Atid, about joining the ‘Change Bloc’, which seeks power, when Abbas closed the negotiations in protest against the increasing Israeli-Palestinian violence.
At the time, barely a day passed before Abbas’ apparatchiks made known to the Hebrew-language media their desire to resume talks, and indeed, within days of the violence abating, Ra’am made history as the first all-Arab party to join a governing coalition .
Almost a year later, unrest between Israelis and Palestinians simmered again, and Ra’am has continued to voice his displeasure, this time “freezing” his involvement in the defunct coalition.
But unlike a year ago, this time it’s not just about the future of the coalition, but also about the political fortunes of Abbas himself and the Ra’am party. After months in which the party was viewed by some voters as little more than an ineffective fig leaf, many in Ra’am are wondering if they should ever return to the coalition or to Abbas.
At the same time, both Abbas and Ra’am are wary of strengthening the faltering coalition that is actively sending police to quell unrest on the Temple Mount; This is likely to alienate Ra’am within Arab society and weaken any political support it once had.
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“Abbas wants to stay in the Knesset, but it will be difficult for him,” said political scientist Ehab Jabareen.
Abbas’ decision on Sunday to temporarily sack his four-member Islamist Ra’am party jeopardized the already shaky coalition, reducing its numbers from a 60-60 ratio with the opposition to a 56-64 disadvantage.
Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas in the Knesset. (Courtesy)
His announcement followed several days of clashes between Palestinians, Jews and Israeli police on the Temple Mount, in which over 150 were injured. Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, is known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif and is home to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest shrine.
Abbas has based his political credibility on the premise that active involvement in Israeli politics can bring tangible civilian gains to Arab society. But his inability to do so substantially in the first 10 months of government was greatly relieved by his continued participation in a government that was seen by at least some of his constituents as an assault on Jerusalem’s holy sites.
Ra’am and his constituency have swallowed ideological compromises, such as remaining in a government that has backed the renewal of the controversial citizenship law — which bars some Palestinians who marry Israelis from gaining permanent residency in Israel — but it still is has failed to recognize unofficial Bedouin villages, or stop the demolition of illegal, unauthorized houses in Arab communities, or significantly reduce crime in Arab cities.
“There are a lot of people who say that to this day we have nothing real from it,” said Salih Ryan, a Ra’am politician and mayor of the northern Israeli city of Kabul.
Palestinians chant slogans and wave Hamas flags during a protest against Israel in front of the Dome of the Rock Shrine at the Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City, April 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
Rather than being a party built around a charismatic leader, Ra’am is the political party of the Southern Islamic Movement and its elites come from that infrastructure.
Abbas must not only appeal to his political base, but also maintain the trust of his party’s religious leadership.
“He needs [a win] to prove the justification of all this effort and the idea,” Jabareen told both Ra’am’s constituency and his institutional elites.
Jabareen noted that with tensions rising in recent days, Ra’am leaders have begun speaking out against Abbas for the first time, reflecting the importance they attach to the issue. The temporary withdrawal from coalition politics was announced after a meeting of the Shura Council of the South Islamic Movement.
“Ra’am’s current mistakes are seen as Abbas’ mistakes, not party mistakes. When it looks like Ra’am is going to lose [its place in] the Knesset, they will eliminate Abbas,” Jabareen said.
Ehab Jabareen, Political Analyst. (Courtesy)
According to Wadi’a Awawdeh, a radio commentator on Arab politics, the Shura Council leaned on Abbas after feeling the heat of the Arab street himself.
“Street pressure made the Islamic movement press their political party, Ra’am, to do something,” he said.
He noted that the Israeli police’s actions on the Temple Mount fueled anger.
“The Israeli side thinks Al-Aqsa is just the mosque. But for Muslims, whatever Jews call the Temple Mount is Al-Aqsa. To enter the area is like entering the mosque, it’s all sacred,” he said.
Meanwhile, dominant Palestinian narratives have claimed that the Israeli leadership has ramped up its response on the Temple Mount in revenge for a spate of Israeli Arab and Palestinian terrorist attacks in recent weeks and to show voters they are doing something, Awawdeh noted.
After a security assessment with defense officials and ministers on Sunday, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel Defense Forces have “free rein” to continue operating to maintain security in Jerusalem, particularly “continue to deal with rioters who violate public order.” .
“The Palestinian street, believing that the entire area is sacred, thinks that Israel is doing this as collective punishment after the terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv, Beersheba and Hadera,” Awawdeh said.
Wadi’a Awawdeh, Political Analyst for Arabic language Radio Nas. (Courtesy)
On Monday, Abbas told a radio interviewer he wanted Israel to return to the pre-2000 status quo on the Temple Mount. Although he did not specify what that meant, the period stood out as a period when Israel coordinated all entry of Jewish visitors to the compound with the Jordanian Waqf, both Jabareen and Awawdeh said.
He later put forward a series of other demands, including bread-and-butter issues in Arab society such as money for economic development and funding for housing plans, which both hardened his stance and paved his way back into the coalition.
Salih Ryan, Mayor of Kabul, Israel. (Courtesy)
The demands reflect Abbas’ precarious position, in which moving back into the coalition means not only returning by early April 2022, before the Temple Mount became a battleground, but by April 2021, before the perceived stagnation on issues affecting important to Arab society, making ideological compromises with the Bennett-led government is politically unpalatable.
Ryan, the mayor of Kabul, said the frustration at Abbas’ path is so palpable that “people are starting to say that even Netanyahu is easier to deal with; at least he has not allowed the extreme right to take part in provocations.”
“This freezing [on coalition membership] is not just a freeze,” he said. “In Ra’am himself, there’s a really hard disagreement about whether or not he should stay in government.”