Political balancing act

Opposition is crap. Mansour Abbas, the leader of the United Arab List party, in the Israeli Knesset at the end of 2022 at the swearing in of the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is still in office today

The weekend before last, the Arab-Israeli party United Arab List (abbreviated Ra'am) held its party conference in Tayibe and presented its electoral list for the Knesset election at the end of October. The Islamic conservative party aims to participate in government if the current opposition camp wins.

Chairman Mansour Abbas's party conference speech showed the difficulties of this undertaking. Abbas called for Israel to recognize a Palestinian state. This has been one of its central demands since the party was founded. However, large parts of Israeli society reject this under current circumstances - especially since the anti-Semitic massacre of October 7th. Many fear that Hamas or another anti-Semitic militant party will come to power in a state of Palestine in the West Bank, which could threaten Israel from there.

The current most promising candidate for Israeli prime minister, Gadi Eizenkot, made it clear that no Palestinian state would emerge with his participation.

Not only parties in the government coalition, but also possible coalition partners of Ra’am from the opposition reacted accordingly. The current most promising candidate for Israeli prime minister, Gadi Eizenkot, made it clear that no Palestinian state would emerge with his participation. According to the public broadcaster Kan News, Abbas quickly classified his statements in a message to his possible coalition partners: recognition of a Palestinian state is a basic position of his party, but not a condition for a coalition.

Ra'am's roots lie in the Islamist Islamic Movement, the Israeli branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which since the 1970s has sought greater Islamization of the Arab population and the establishment of an Islamic state in Palestine instead of Israel. Parts of the movement tried to achieve their goals through violence, and some activists served several years in prison for alleged sabotage of Israeli infrastructure, the murder of a suspected Arab collaborator and the creation of an arms cache. The movement also maintained indirect relations with the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, which also emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, the peace process in the 1990s between Israel and Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) split the Islamic movement. Some supported the peace process and founded the Ra'am party in 1996 to promote their own interests through parliamentary participation. However, a significant part of the movement, led by its radical northern wing, rejected participation in Knesset elections because it would recognize a Jewish, liberal and secular state as legitimate. This movement was banned in 2015 because of its support for Hamas. Despite their different positions and strategies, both wings to this day share some goals and compete for influence within the same Arab-Muslim population. Raed Salah and Safwat Freij, the spiritual leaders of the two factions of the movement, only met at the end of 2025 to speak out against a split in the Islamic movement in a joint video message.

With the election of Mansour Abbas as leader in 2018, Ra’am took a highly pragmatic course aimed at participating in government. To this end, Abbas is trying to establish his party as a serious and pragmatic Arab people's party that represents the specific concerns of all Arab Israelis and does not question Israeli security interests. Ra’am’s core constituency are Arab Muslims, particularly the Bedouins in the Negev Desert of southern Israel. But Abbas is also trying to convince the Arab religious minority of the Druze as well as Christian and secular Arabs and the large number of Arab non-voters by promising to improve their living conditions. Ra'am already had success in 2021 with its participation in the government coalition under Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, who alternated in the office of Prime Minister. Since then, Abbas has sought to limit anti-Israel positions and the influence of the Islamic Movement in the party.

Since 2021, Abbas has repeatedly emphasized that Israel is and will remain a Jewish state. In 2023, he condemned Hamas' terror as inhumane.

For the first time, the elections to draw up the electoral list took place independently of the Shura Council of the Islamic Movement on August 22nd. The already advanced negotiations over the inclusion of Yoav Segalovitz - a Jew and former deputy minister for internal security in the Bennett-Lapid government who was committed to combating rampant crime in the Arab part of society - on Ra'am's electoral list are also part of the reform efforts. In addition, since 2021, Abbas has repeatedly emphasized that Israel is and will remain a Jewish state. In 2023, he condemned Hamas' terror as inhumane. This is not without controversy within the party. The Ra'am chairman Abdulmalik Dehamshe, who served from 1996 to 2006, denied the October 7 massacres committed by Hamas and justified their attack.

Abbas' moderate statements and his willingness to work with Jewish-Israeli parties also earned him accusations from the Arab public of betraying central Islamic and Palestinian positions. He responded to this criticism by emphasizing his roots in the Islamic movement as well as his commitment to a two-state solution. These are again positions that harm his acceptance among the Israeli public. Recent events also show that the path taken by Ra’am under Abbas remains a tightrope walk.