Whether it be over legislation to connect illegally built Arab homes to Israel's electrical grid or any other law, the coalition is headed toward conflict. Even though fears of early elections have kept the government together thus far, such a confrontation is only a matter of time.
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In the meantime, the recent public confrontation between the Ra'am party and Yamina member and Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked may serve both sides' interests. Shaked is sending the necessary signals to right-wing voters, in particular concerning demands for governance in the Negev region, while Ra'am members, and Walid Taha, in particular, are sending their voters a message with their strong-arming and demonstrating they have the power to dismantle the coalition.
To date, Ra'am has behaved as if it is in an abusive relationship: taking blows from those in the coalition meant to defend it but refusing to tell their voters about the insults and violence they endure. Moreover, they are trying to portray the ones dealing the blows in a positive light so as not to give the neighbors anything to talk about.
Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas took a big risk as the leader of Arab Israelis in joining the coalition. Now, Ra'am doesn't have very many options left. The Islamic Movement's people will need to show up with receipts and not just campaign promises or unfulfilled coalition agreements.
Yet Arab parties, and the Islamic movement, in particular, cannot be as influential as such ideological parties should be within the current coalition or any other coalition for that matter.
Thus far, Ra'am has done the very opposite of what it promised its voters, in particular as far as concerns LGBTQ rights, surrogacy laws, and budgetary support for the settlements. In its election campaign, Ra'am promised it would not support such legislation and claimed this was the reason it had dropped out of the Joint Arab List. In Israeli politics, it seems violating campaign promises is a cross-sectoral phenomenon.
One of the decisions Ra'am members made when they joined the coalition was to avoid public events in Arab society. There are Arab politicians who see providing Ra'am members with Shin Bet security agency detail as dangerous Israelization that legitimizes the agency and its guards and makes them part of the landscape at the sector's political events.
Taking the state of the coalition into account, and in order not to embarrass Prime Minister Naftali Bennett or his Yamina party, members of the party representing the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement chose not to congratulate the leader of the movement's northern branch, Sheikh Raed Salah, upon his release from prison. This is in complete contrast to the majority of leaders in Arab society.
In a move that symbolized the level of discord within the party, the one Ra'am member who did dare to attend was MK Mazen Ghnaim. His arrival, though, had more to do with his intentions of running once again for mayor of Sakhnin. The Arab-majority city is considered a bastion of Salah supporters, and a picture of the two of them together could certainly help Ghnaim make his way back into city hall, where he would wield more influence on a local level and avoid having to deal with difficult votes in the Knesset.
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