Golan says opposition should partner with Ra’am to topple ‘failed, corrupt government’

Democrats chairman Yair Golan calls on the leaders of the opposition to embrace the Arab Ra’am party as a potential partner in order to topple Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling coalition, calling it “the appropriate Zionist response” to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s attacks on the Islamist faction.

In a video message, Golan appeals “personally and directly” to his fellow leaders of the “liberal and democratic bloc,” arguing that “if we must rely on the votes of the Ra’am party to topple this failed, corrupt, and most dangerous government to Israel’s security, then Ra’am is a worthy partner.”

Smotrich sparked an uproar this morning when he asserted that former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s decision to include Ra’am in his 2021-2022 government was far worse than the governmental failures tied to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught — the worst terror attack in Israeli history.

Facing intense right-wing attacks, Bennett has said that, if elected in this year’s election, he would only rely on Zionist parties for his coalition, rather than sitting again with Ra’am.

Addressing other opposition leaders, Golan insists that “the time has come to stop cooperating with this campaign of incitement and delegitimization and to start acting like a governing alternative” rather than “following the political rules of the game set by Netanyahu and his far-right partners.”