Liberman, coalition bash Yair Golan for backing government with Ra’am

By Ariela Karmel

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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.

Yair Golan, chairman of the Democrats party, attends an election campaign event in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, September 28, 2026. (Sharon Leibel/Flash90)

Democrats leader Yair Golan says he supports forming a government with Mansour Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am party, drawing sharp criticism from both the coalition and his prospective partner, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman.

“Jewish-Arab partnership in government is a positive thing,” Golan tells Channel 12 news. “That is absolutely our future. They represent 21 percent of the citizens of the State of Israel.”

Golan acknowledges that his fellow “change bloc” leaders Liberman, B’Yachad chairman Naftali Bennett and Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot have not agreed to govern with Ra’am, saying he “will continue trying to persuade” them, while suggesting their positions could shift after the election.

“What people do before elections…everyone needs to bring in their voters,” Golan says, arguing that afterward they will face a “very simple dilemma” over forming an alternative government.

The hawkish Liberman rejects the notion, saying, “There will be no coalition with the Arab parties,” while accusing Golan of trying to regain Arab support after the Democrats backed the disqualification of Balad chairman Sami Abou Shehadeh. Both Liberman and Golan were among opposition chiefs who last week agreed not to campaign against each other ahead of the election.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party says Golan’s comments prove the opposition intends to form “a left-wing government with the Arab parties,” while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich claims he is “saying out loud what his partners Eisenkot and Liberman are trying in every way to conceal.”

The dispute highlights a central obstacle facing the opposition ahead of the October 27 election, as current polling leaves the Zionist opposition without a path to a 61-seat majority without Ra’am, even as several of its leaders have ruled out an alliance with the party.

Likud and its allies have no clear path to a majority and have made the prospect of a government reliant on Arab parties a central line of attack against Eisenkot and his rivals, echoing past campaigns by Netanyahu.