Mansour Abbas

Mansour Abbas occupies an unusual place in Israeli politics: in 2021 he led Ra'am, which grew out of the Islamic Movement, into the Bennett–Lapid government, making it the first Arab party in decades to be part of a coalition. His decision to abandon the Arab parties' traditional abstention and turn political power into budgets, the fight against crime and services for Arab society is the core of his public standing, and also the source of the polarization around him. His supporters, and part of the Jewish public, see rare pragmatism in statements such as "The State of Israel was born a Jewish state, and so it will remain" and in his condemnation of the October 7 massacre; his opponents in Arab society see them as abandoning the national struggle, while the right points to the Islamic Movement's roots and its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. That tension peaked in the autumn of 2026, when the Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Ra'am and a nine-justice panel of the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the disqualification on October 2. Meanwhile Abbas is reshaping his party: he has separated it from the Islamic Movement's Shura Council, placed former Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz second — the first Jewish candidate on the party's slate — and declared that his goal is to replace the government and join the next one. He has already announced that this will be the last Knesset race he runs in, so the question that will shape his standing is whether the 2021 experiment becomes a lasting legacy. More than that of any other Arab leader, his standing depends on the coalition calculus: proven influence and tangible achievements would cement it, while electoral failure or marginalization would weaken it.