Mansour Abbas, Islamist, A Deciding Factor In Knesset Race

On Tuesday, March 23, Israelis took to the polls for the fourth time in only two years, to elect what would be a stable government that would avoid previously experienced instability that has allowed the only democracy in the Middle East to reach this milestone. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and his Likud party, has seen the largest amount of seats earned thus far, said that Tuesday night was a “massive victory” for the right-wing, in a midnight speech at party headquarters.  

Regardless of the Pro-Netanyahu cheers, the truth is this is the fourth election in a row where Netanyahu failed to receive a clear right-wing majority government. 

With around 95% of the vote counted, the pro-Netanyahu parties are on track to earn 52 seats, which is nine short of the 61-majority threshold. On the other side, the anti-Netanyahu parties have accumulated only 50 seats.   

Both sides will need to persuade Naftali Bennett’s Right-wing Yamina party to join them, however, it is most expected that Bennett is to join the side with greater ideological proximity that being the Pro-Netanyahu camp. Although Bennett’s party has key seats to offer, he and his party have under-performed according to previous election polls. He has previously announced that he would not join a coalition with Yesh Atid leader, Yair Lapid as Prime Minister, only to be downplayed by Lapid himself; regardless his estimated seven seats will not be enough for either camp.   

The real deciding factor happens to be none other than Mansour Abbas and the Ra’am Islamist Party. In any other scenario, he would be running with the Arab Joint List party, however, with political spats over his cooperation with Netanyahu, he took the matter into his hand to fulfill his vision of cooperating with Zionist parties to deliver more funding for his Arab constituencies. Every year Arab-Israeli votes become more frustrated with the failure of political action because the Joint List Knesset member always sits in opposition where their roles are limited.