From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Left-wing Democrats candidate says Arab-Israeli Mansour Abbas is ‘more Zionist’ than Haredi UTJ
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Yaya Fink, a candidate for the left-wing Democrats party, says that Arab politician Mansour Abbas is “more Zionist,” and loves Israel more, than lawmakers from the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party.
Fink, in an interview on Channel 12, is asked whether he’d prefer to form a governing coalition with Arab-Israeli parties or with Haredi lawmakers.
“I think Mansour Abbas loves Israel more than United Torah Judaism and its Knesset members,” Fink, who recently placed fifth on the Democrats’ election slate, responds. “And he’s more Zionist than the members of United Torah Judaism who sing, ‘We will die rather than enlist.'”
Fink is referring to Haredi demonstrations against military conscription, including one last night at the Beit Lid military prison, protesting the arrest of a Haredi draft dodger, that drew 25,000 people, including UTJ party chief MK Yitzhak Goldknopf. Ultra-Orthodox demonstrators also protested last night outside the home of Attorney General Gali Bharav-Miara in Tel Aviv.
Whether to explore a partnership with Haredi parties, which have been staunch allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is a topic of debate among the anti-Netanyahu opposition. The opposition is likewise split on whether to partner with Arab parties to oust the premier.
Abbas’s Ra’am party broke with precedent in 2021 to join an anti-Netanyahu coalition that unseated the long-serving premier for a year and a half. More recently, Abbas announced that Ra’am would depart from its historically Islamist stance and become a civic party.
The Times of Israel Community.