Abbas says Ra'am party will be open to Jewish candidates, in major shift

The move appears to be part of a larger process to separate the party from the Islamic Movement and boost legitimacy with Zionist parties ahead of October elections

By Ariela Karmel

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5 January 2026, 2:54 pm

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Ariela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.

Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas announced Monday that his Islamist party would become a broad-based party open to Jewish candidates, in a major shift.

“Every citizen of the State of Israel — Jewish and Arab — can join Ra’am and be among its Knesset candidates,” Abbas said in a radio interview with Radio 103fm. “I want to expand the ranks of the party within Jewish society.”

Asked whether he was already speaking with potential Jewish candidates who could join Ra’am, Abbas said, “There are Jewish Knesset members with whom I see eye to eye, and I would be honored if they joined Ra’am.”

Ra’am is affiliated with the southern branch of the Islamic Movement, and its candidate lists have historically been exclusively Arab Muslim. However, the party announced last month that it would separate from the religious council to which it is linked and establish its own institutions.

That, combined with the latest move to open the party to Jewish candidates, appears to be aimed at distancing the party from hardline Muslim organizations in order to boost its legitimacy among Zionist Israeli parties ahead of elections set to be held before the end of October.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to threaten in November to outlaw the Arab political party, claiming it is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, a global Islamist organization that has been outlawed in around a dozen countries for alleged links to terrorism, which Abbas has repeatedly denied.

Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas and MK Waleed Alhawashleh convene with heads of Bedouin locales in the Negev for an emergency meeting in opposition to the police’s practice of erecting roadblocks in Bedouin towns, in Tel Sheva on December 15, 2025. (Courtesy/Talal Alkernawi)

Ra’am has taken a relatively conciliatory stance in Israel and is focused more on socioeconomic issues than its parent movement’s more radical sister branch, the Northern Islamic Movement, which is outlawed.

Other Arab parties have already or are contemplating opening up their parties to Jewish candidates, according to an unnamed source with knowledge of the issue.

Left-wing Arab-majority party Hadash has a spot on its list that is held for Jewish candidates, and one of its five MKs, Ofer Cassif, is Jewish, though the party is otherwise represented by Arab lawmakers.

“This isn’t new in Arab politics. Balad is also talking about having a spot for a Jewish candidate,” said the source.

“But, if Ra’am reserves a spot for a Jewish candidate, that would indeed be new at the party level, because it would significantly change the party’s image from a party belonging to the Islamic Movement to a party seeking to appeal to broader and more diverse audiences,” added the source.

Hadash-Ta’al MK Ofer Cassif attends a Knesset Economic Committee meeting in Jerusalem, on July 7, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Ra’am currently holds five seats in the Knesset, and polls indicate it will likely retain that number in the next elections, set for October, making the party a potential kingmaker for a new government.

Several opposition leaders, including Yair Golan’s left-wing Democrats and Yashar party chair and ex-military chief Gadi Eisenkot, have expressed willingness to form a government including or supported by Arab parties, though others, including Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, have vetoed the option.

In 2021, after being courted by Netanyahu to become part of his coalition, Abbas decided to partner with Netanyahu’s rivals, making Ra’am the first Arab party in decades to be part of a ruling coalition, which was led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.

Speaking on Monday, Abbas was emphatic that there is no possibility of Ra’am’s joining a coalition with the parties now in the government.

“These people abandoned us in favor of extremist parties. Today we are suffering from the policies of Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit,” he said.

In the same interview, the leader discussed the violent crime epidemic ravaging Arab society, which he called “the worst crisis” the community has experienced, and claimed that the leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, “smiles” every time an Arab is murdered.