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Monday, November 24, 2025
Odeh calls on Islamist Ra’am to join united list of Arab parties in face of potential ban
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleAriela 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.
Hadash-Ta’al chair Ayman Odeh calls on Mansour Abbas’ Islamist party Ra’am to join a united electoral list of Arab parties, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to threaten to outlaw it on the grounds that it is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.
“Join a joint list! United as one, we will command 17 mandates and remove Netanyahu,” Odeh says, speaking before a faction meeting at the Knesset.
While recent polls indicate Ra’am would win 6 seats and Hadash-Ta’al 5, a single unified Arab list is expected to perform better than the parties on their own. Arab parties have run together in past elections.
The Arab parties have for months been in talks to revive the list, which, at its peak in 2020, commanded the third-largest bloc in the Knesset.
Ra’am, on its own, was part of the coalition that briefly unseated Netanyahu in 2021, the first time in decades that an Arab party had joined the government.
Odeh accuses Netanyahu of “incitement” against Ra’am and the entire Arab population and criticizes opposition leaders for cooperating in the de-legitimization of Arab citizens.
He notes that his party “stands alongside Ra’am” despite “serious disagreements,” and calls on opposition parties to “do everything” to prevent Netanyahu, and far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, from being re-elected.
The Times of Israel Community.