Golan’s New Rules: Arab Votes Without the Apology Tour

Yair Golan has done what Israeli centrists spend years pretending they are brave enough to do: he said out loud that Ra’am is a “legitimate partner”. In today’s Israel, that is not a policy line. It is a declaration of war on the old coalition taboo.

The timing is the point. Smotrich attacks Bennet and Lapid over their 2021 deal with Mansour Abbas, and Golan answers by turning Ra’am from a political toxin into a public asset. The message to the anti-Netanyahu camp is blunt: stop whispering, stop apologizing, and stop pretending you can beat the right without Arab voters.

Of course, this also hands the Likud machine a fresh weapon. Now Golan is not just tolerated by the opposition’s skeptics; he is the man who put the partnership on the table and left no room for deniability. That is either strategic clarity or electoral self-sabotage, depending on whether you think Israeli politics rewards honesty or only punishment.

The bigger shift is uglier and more honest. A coalition with Arabs is no longer being sold as a shameful exception; it is being sold as the only way to stop the current government from surviving its own collapse. Israel keeps calling this democracy while moving every rule that used to be forbidden into the main operating system.

#Israel #Golan #RAAM #Netanyahu #elections

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Arabs Are Welcome. Their Parties Are Not.

Aliza Bloch joined Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein's new right-wing party and answered the question Israeli centrists have spent years avoiding: should Arab citizens have a place in government?

"Yes," she said. "There is room for everyone." Israel should stop building walls around the debate, she added, and Arab citizens "certainly" belong in an Israeli government.

Within hours the party issued a clarification on behalf of Erdan and Edelstein. It would never sit with Arab parties that support terrorism and refuse to call Hamas a terrorist organization.

There could be room for "Zionist Arabs" who love the country, support enlistment or national service, and accept Israel's Jewish identity. Ra'am and the Joint List were named as excluded.

Note what the clarification did not do. It did not contradict Bloch. She spoke about Arab citizens; Erdan and Edelstein spoke about Arab parties. Both statements can stand, which is exactly the point — the position was never that Arabs are unwelcome. It is that Arab citizens are welcome in government provided they do not arrive through the parties Arab citizens actually elect.

The conditions are worth reading closely, because they are not conditions of the same kind. Loving the country is rhetoric. Supporting enlistment is policy. Accepting Israel's Jewish identity is constitutional. An Arab politician can perform the first, negotiate the second, and lose his seat over the third.

The list is not a test that happens to be hard. It is a test written so that no elected Arab representative can pass it and keep the voters who elected him.

Ra'am sat in Naftali Bennett's coalition in 2021 — the first Arab party in an Israeli government. It held for a year. Since then the entire spectrum from Likud to Erdan's new slate has treated that year as a mistake rather than a precedent.

Bloch offered a broad coalition. The clarification supplied the gate and the checklist.

Arab citizens can join an Israeli government. The parties they vote for cannot.

#Israel #ArabCitizens #Erdan #Edelstein #elections #Raam #democracy

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🇵🇸 “Palestine Exists,” Says Ra’am. The Denial Choir Begins.

Ra’am convened in Tayibe to select its Knesset slate and authorize party leader Mansour Abbas to reserve slots for possible recruits. Abbas opened with a statement designed to trip every Israeli coalition wire:

“The State of Palestine exists, and most of the world recognizes it, except for the United States and Israel. We want them to recognize it as well, and we are working to achieve peace, reconciliation and an end to the occupation and the conflict.”

The conference approved a list led by Abbas, followed by Walid Taha, Walid al-Hawashla, Iman Khatib-Yassin, and Yasser Hujeirat. It also authorized Abbas to reserve places on the ticket while talks continue over a possible move by former Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz. Abbas said Segalovitz would be suited to serve as national security minister; Segalovitz has not formally joined Ra’am.

Then Israel’s political class began racing each other to reject the premise.

Gadi Eisenkot wrote: “There is no Palestinian state, and under a government we establish, no Palestinian state will be created.”

Benjamin Netanyahu seized on the same line. “As long as I am prime minister, there will be no Palestinian state controlled by Iran: not in Gaza, and not in Judea and Samaria. Period.” He then cast Abbas as proof of the danger posed by a prospective left-wing coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood.

The point is not that Abbas, Eisenkot, and Netanyahu agree on Palestinian statehood. They plainly do not. Abbas’s line became raw political material: Ra’am offered recognition; Eisenkot offered refusal; Netanyahu turned both into a campaign argument about coalition arithmetic.

The Joint List is watching from the Arab flank. Its chairman, Yousef Jabareen, says the reunited alliance expects more than 10 seats in the next election and claims Ra’am was invited to join but “was not serious.” Ra’am, meanwhile, is betting that Abbas’s route still runs through a future governing coalition.

In Israeli election politics, a Palestinian state can be a legal fact, a security threat, an impossible promise, and a coalition weapon — often inside a single news cycle.

#Israel #Palestine #Raam #MansourAbbas #Eisenkot #Netanyahu #Elections #Knesset

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The Bedouin Endorsement That Wasn’t

Gadi Eisenkot’s party announced that eight Bedouin local leaders backed him for prime minister. By morning, several said they had never endorsed him. They had asked whether Ra’am would enter his government.

Muayad al-Hayeb, head of the Tuba-Zangariyye local council, initially said Eisenkot had promised to push for bringing Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am into a future coalition.

Eisenkot called that “a complete lie,” released video from the September 15 meeting, and said he had not discussed the next government’s makeup. Al-Hayeb later withdrew the claim and said Eisenkot had not told him he would form a government with Ra’am.

The meeting was meant to show Eisenkot making inroads into the Arab-Bedouin vote and cutting into Ra’am’s base. Instead, four local leaders told Haaretz they had rejected a request to endorse him. Municipal chiefs deliver budgets, not voting blocs. They deal with whoever controls the purse strings.

Eisenkot says any coalition he leads will require acceptance of the Declaration of Independence, recognition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and acceptance of universal service.

He says parties that do not recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization will remain outside the coalition. Netanyahu says Eisenkot cannot form a government without Arab parties. The campaign is already selling red lines wholesale, months before anyone has counted a seat.

Israel has seen this movie. On Channel 20, two days before the March 2021 election, Naftali Bennett signed a pledge that he would never let Yair Lapid become prime minister, “not even in a rotation,” and would not form a government dependent on Mansour Abbas’s Ra’am.

Bennett later formed a rotation government with Lapid, served first as prime minister with Yamina’s seven seats, and brought Ra’am into the coalition. In a September 4, 2026, interview with The Jerusalem Post, Bennett acknowledged that he broke the promise.

Campaign vows are Israel’s most renewable resource.

#Israel #Elections2026 #GadiEisenkot #Raam

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The Disqualification Assembly Line

Justice Noam Sohlberg opened Israel’s Central Elections Committee hearings with a warning that disqualifying a candidate or list denies an entire public the right to vote for it.

The committee then disqualified Ofer Cassif, Sami Abu Shehadeh, Ra’am and the Joint List in one day.

Cassif was barred by 19 votes to five, with two abstentions. He called the outcome predetermined and legally baseless.

The committee also voted to disqualify Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh. Reports differ on the tally, giving it as either 30–4 or 31–4, but agree on the unusual part: Sohlberg voted for the ban.

Chairmen of the committee generally avoid voting unless a tie requires it. Sohlberg said he would waive that neutrality because, in his view, this was a clear case.

At the hearing, Abu Shehadeh said: “I have never supported Hamas’s armed struggle against the State of Israel.” It made no difference.

Yair Golan backed Itamar Ben-Gvir’s petition to ban him, saying there should be “no discounts” for either Abu Shehadeh or Ben-Gvir and that both should be disqualified. Ben-Gvir’s own contribution was cleaner: “Sami Abu Shehadeh, bara, bara from the Knesset.”

Ra’am was disqualified 18–5, with one abstention, without Sohlberg’s support. Mansour Abbas answered that “Abu Yair,” who negotiated with him at Balfour, understands that disqualifying Ra’am is the only way to stop the next change government.

The Joint List was also barred and said the Central Elections Committee should rename itself the “Kahanist Elections Committee.”

The party Yachad, which said the previous day it would not join “the disqualification game,” voted to disqualify Abu Shehadeh. Its representatives skipped the votes on Ra’am and the Joint List. In Israel’s election ritual, the principle is apparently sacred enough to observe selectively.

The Supreme Court now has the final word. Decisions barring candidates or lists do not take effect without judicial review, and Israeli reporting expects the court to overturn at least some of the committee’s decisions.

Tomorrow, the committee turns to petitions against Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionism, Zehut and the Democrats.

The committee began with a lecture on voters’ rights and ended by removing their options. Tomorrow it will decide whether the same law has room for Ben-Gvir.

#IsraelElections #Knesset #Raam #Balad

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52–52, Until the Court Counts

Kan 11’s latest poll gives Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar! 23 seats and Likud 21. Netanyahu’s bloc and the “change” bloc each land on 52. The remaining 16 seats include 12 held by Ra’am and the Joint List, the same two Arab lists the Central Elections Committee has moved to remove from the ballot.

The headline gap between Yashar! and Likud matters inside the opposition. Eisenkot, not Bennett, would lead its largest party. It does not change the government arithmetic. No bloc is near 61. The government depends on a handful of seats, the legal status of the Arab lists and the willingness of parties to sit with one another after election night.

On September 23, the Central Elections Committee voted 18–5, with one abstention, to bar Ra’am. The petitions came from Likud, Otzma Yehudit and the Choosing Life forum of bereaved families. The same 18–5 result barred the Joint List, which combines Hadash, Ta’al and Balad. The Attorney General’s Office opposed both bans, arguing that the evidence did not meet Israel’s demanding legal standard for disqualification.

The committee also barred two individual candidates:

Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, by 19 votes to five with two abstentions. The committee accepted the Likud petition on the ground of alleged support for armed struggle.

Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh, by roughly 30 or 31 votes to four. Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, the committee chair, joined that vote, breaking the customary restraint of chairs in candidate-disqualification cases.

The court must approve a ban on an individual candidate before it takes effect. Parties have to file their own appeals against a ban on their list.

That procedural difference matters: Cassif and Abu Shehadeh reach the Supreme Court automatically; Ra’am and the Joint List must ask it to reverse the committee.

If both lists are ultimately excluded, their seats do not vanish. The Knesset still has 120 seats, and the votes redistribute among lists that pass the 3.25 percent threshold.

A simple proportional redistribution puts each major bloc roughly five or six seats higher, still short of 61. Actual results would depend on Arab turnout, whether Arab voters move to the Democrats or another eligible list, and which smaller parties clear the threshold.

Lower turnout also reduces the raw vote total needed to pass the threshold, raising the relative value of disciplined electorates, especially Haredi and religious-Zionist voters.

The political effect is stranger than the arithmetic. Ra’am can, at least in theory, help a change bloc reach a working arrangement. The Joint List cannot plausibly be the coalition partner of Bennett, Eisenkot and Liberman. Their 12 poll seats therefore look like one coalition resource only from a distance.

Disqualifying Ra’am and the Joint List would remove Likud’s favorite accusation: that the opposition intends to govern through Mansour Abbas.

It would also remove an internal fracture inside the opposition, where Yair Golan is open to Arab participation while Eisenkot, Bennett and Liberman reject it.

That gives the opposition a cleaner story: a Zionist cabinet of the center and moderate right. It especially helps Eisenkot, whose party leads the field but whose coalition has no natural path through the Arab lists.

Netanyahu gets a different benefit. The exclusion fight turns the campaign toward security, loyalty and representation.

Even if the Supreme Court restores the lists, Likud can say the court enabled the coalition it warned about. If the bans stand, Arab turnout may fall and the right’s disciplined base becomes more valuable.

#IsraelElections #Knesset #Raam #Yashar

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The Ballot Box’s Terror Test

Israel’s Supreme Court overturned the Central Elections Committee and cleared Ra’am, the Joint List and MK Ofer Cassif to run in the October 27 Knesset election. Ra’am and the Joint List were restored unanimously.

Cassif survived by a 7–2 vote, with Justices David Mintz and Alex Stein voting to disqualify him.

The court did not suddenly discover admiration for Cassif’s record.

The justices described his statements and conduct as “outrageous” and “disgusting,” but ruled that they did not meet the statutory threshold for barring a candidate from parliament.

Israeli election law does not disqualify people for making the judges furious.

It requires proof that they support armed struggle against Israel or reject the state’s Jewish and democratic character.

That distinction is where the political theater breaks down. The Central Elections Committee, made up of party representatives, can vote to ban Arab lists with impressive majorities.

The Supreme Court then asks the embarrassing follow-up question: where is the legal evidence? Ra’am and the Joint List passed that test unanimously.

Ofer Winter’s Am Yisrael party called the ruling proof that the court prefers to “qualify supporters of terror” rather than fight them.

That is a campaign line, not the court’s holding. The court held something less convenient for every party that wants a cleaner electorate: political disgust is not a substitute for disqualification evidence.

The system has found its ritual. Politicians ban Arab parties before an election.

Judges reinstate them. Everyone leaves furious, which is the only national consensus still guaranteed to make it onto the ballot.

#Israel #Elections #SupremeCourt #Raam

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⚔️Democracy, With Exclusions

Far-right lawmaker Simcha Rothman wants Israeli law applied across the West Bank. Asked by The New York Times whether Palestinians there would get the vote, he said, "No."

Yoav Segalovitz, a former police commander and deputy public security minister, is running second on the list of Raam, an Islamist Arab party. He is the first Jewish candidate on its slate. He joined the list and its Knesset faction but not the party itself, and he keeps a free vote on religion and state, security, and LGBTQ rights.

"I am going to an Arab party. They are not coming to me," he told The Media Line. Netanyahu's billboards frame the choice more simply, as "The Right or Palestine!"

The opposition has its own uncomfortable arithmetic. Polls cited by the Times suggest neither camp will reach 61 seats alone, and Raam's projected five or six seats could give Netanyahu's opponents a majority.

Bennett has ruled out relying on Raam, whether as a coalition partner or as outside support for a minority government. Segalovitz is betting his candidacy can change that refusal.

#IsraelElection #Raam #WestBank

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😚Three suspects, every ballot

Police found envelopes of cash. Right-wing politicians demanded that an entire party’s votes be set aside.

Three Negev residents were arrested on suspicion of planning to pay voters to back Ra’am. Searches turned up tens of thousands of shekels in envelopes, along with written notes and other material that police suspect is linked to attempted vote buying.

On Wednesday, Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kroizer, joined by Ministers Amichai Chikli and Amichai Eliyahu and MK Simcha Rothman, called on Central Elections Committee chairman Noam Sohlberg and Shin Bet chief David Zini to open an urgent investigation. They also demanded that every vote for Ra’am be disqualified pending clarification.

The letter goes on to make allegations involving fuel vouchers, gift cards, and an official of Aid 48, [short description]. Those claims need to be investigated, not treated as established fact. No decision to disqualify Ra’am’s votes wholesale has been announced.

Buying votes would corrupt the election. Disqualifying every Ra’am ballot before establishing who paid whom would distort the result more efficiently than any bribe: wholesale disenfranchisement, no envelopes required.

#IsraelElection #Raam #ElectionIntegrity

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