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2020-12-05 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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Ra’am’s refusal to back Knesset break-up widens rift in mainly Arab Joint List
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[IsraelTimes] Balad MK calls decision by Ra’am faction leader Mansour Abbas to skip out on vote and break ranks with rest of alliance ’a blow to the platform of the Joint List’
Joint List is a coalition of Arab-Israeli political parties bribed and coached into existence by then-President Barack Obama’s favourite political consultants with the open intention that together with Labour they would defeat Bibi Netabyahu. But it was an unnatural coalition that has done much to damage Israel’s Left, and appears finally to be falling apart. This is a good part of the reason for the nightly anti-Netanyahu protests across Israel, the other part being lockdown boredom. Tensions rose in the Arab-led Joint List after one of its constituent factions skipped out on Wednesday’s Knesset vote on dissolving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, deepening an internal rift in the umbrella party.
The decision by the Ra’am faction is being interpreted as a show of potential support for the premier, whose right-wing policies and alleged race-baiting have made him deeply unpopular among much of the Arab public, but whom faction leader Mansour Abbas has expressed an open willingness to work with.
Continued from Page 2
Three in the bloc of four mostly-Arab parties voted to dissolve the Knesset in an attempt to topple Netanyahu’s government — left-wing Hadash, Paleostinian nationalist Balad and MK Ahmad Tibi’s Ta’al party.
"The Joint List views Netanyahu as a catastrophe — politically, socially, economically and health-wise," the Joint List said in a statement preceding the vote on Wednesday morning.
But the four MKs in Joint List MK Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am faction — the political wing of the Southern Islamic Movement ...the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement is the “moderate” political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel that since 1996 has stood for seats in the Knesset; the Northern Branch goes in for riots on the Temple Mount via their Mourabitoun cadres, funding Hamas, and social services in Arab villages in the Galilee. The Northern Branch was formally outlawed in 2015... — were absent from the chambers when the Knesset voted to dissolve the government 61-56. A Likud MK who is abroad was the only other absence.
Abbas told The Times of Israel that going to elections would set back critical, tangible legislative achievements for Arab Israelis, such as a long-awaited government plan to fight organized crime in Arab communities.
"If we go to elections now, we will see the right wing take over the Knesset. Netanyahu will make a government under his control with [Yamina party leader] Naftali Bennett. The opportunity to move forward with the government plan to combat violence and crime in Arab municipalities will be lost," Abbas said in a phone call.
The dissolution vote set the stage for the fourth round of national elections in two years as Defense Minister Benny Gantz and his Blue and White party broke from the coalition and voted in favor of the measure.
The measure must still go through committee and pass three more readings in the Knesset before new elections are called.
Ra’am’s absence was the latest volley in a weeks-long public spat in the Joint List. Abbas’s party has rhetorically broken in recent weeks with the other three factions, which compose the bloc of Arab parties.
The party is a marriage of convenience between four Arab-led factions from across the political spectrum united mainly by their shared ethnicity and forced together by a desire to avoid falling below the Knesset’s 3.25% electoral threshold.
What a delightful thought. Abbas has argued that he presents a new, pragmatic approach in Arab Israeli politics: he has shown a public willingness to normalize ties with Netanyahu, spoken warmly of Likud Knesset speaker Yariv Lavin, and suggested that he would consider sitting as a minister in a Likud government.
Pragmatic, indeed. Shockingly so, in fact. Abbas told Channel 12 Wednesday night that he has not given anything to Netanyahu. "I proved that we are not in the pocket of the right, and not in the pocket of the left," he said of his abstention.
In exchange for working with Netanyahu, Abbas has said that he is working to get results on key priorities for Arab Israelis: the extension of a five-year funding plan for Arab municipalities and the government plan to combat organized crime in Arab Israeli communities.
"I don’t support Netanyahu, nor am I seeking to protect him. I’m trying to create change for my constituency — in fighting organized crime, in the housing crisis, recognizing the unrecognized [Bedouin] villages. There’s only one premier, and that’s Netanyahu. He is the address for these demands," Abbas told The Times of Israel.
The rising tension in the Joint List has raised the specter of Arab Israel’s parliamentary representatives again going their separate ways. While the relatively high 3.25% voting threshold for entering parliament has helped keep the four parties more or less together, the Joint List split due to internal divides in the September 2019 elections — with Hadash and Ta’al running together against Balad and Ra’am.
"If the [Arab] Joint List goes in the direction I’m proposing, then there’s a chance the Joint List will continue to exist," Abbas told right-wing Channel 20.
Another delightful idea. But he then added: "If the Joint List repeats the same mistakes, the same positions that offer no vision for the Arab community, it abandons the rationale for its existence."
Walid al-Hawashla, a senior Ra’am official, said that the Joint List ought to be able to survive the political differences raised by his faction.
"This is a political disagreement. The Joint List is composed of four parties, with four ideologies, with different political thinking. Ra’am’s decision [in the vote] ought to be respected," al-Hawashla told The Times of Israel in a phone call.
"People want achievements on the ground. People want to live in peace, they want solutions to housing, solutions to violence," he added, asserting that there was widespread support for Abbas’s approach to politics among Arab Israelis.
More normalization, thanks to President Trump. MK Yusef Jabareen acknowledged in a phone call that Wednesday’s vote had "raised tensions in the Joint List."
In the event that elections are held, the outlook for the Joint List is uncertain. Several recent polls have shown falling numbers for the Arab coalition, from its current 15 mandates to 10 or 11 mandates in the 120-strong Knesset.
"We’ve seen the polls which indicate a backsliding in the Joint List’s strength, and the internal debates within the Joint List play a role in that. But we’re hopeful that the campaign period will allow us to gain back our power," Jabareen said. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2020-12-05 00:00||
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