Ra’am chief Mansour Abbas: Arab parties ‘compelled’ to accept Jewish character of state

Ra’am party chief MK Mansour Abbas writes that he and the other Arab political parties are forced to accept Israel as a Jewish state; otherwise they would be barred from running for Knesset.

In a lengthy Arabic-language post on Facebook, Abbas writes that there are a number of his positions that have been “misrepresented” in recent months.

“First, the Jewish character of the state is a reality imposed upon us. It is not something we chose; rather, it is the choice of the Jewish majority and not our demand,” he writes. “Arab parties have been compelled to accept it in practice, otherwise they would be disqualified from parliamentary and local elections.”

Abbas also denies any reports that he does not recognize “the Nakba,” the Palestinian term meaning “catastrophe” which refers to the creation of Israel in 1948 and the mass displacement of Arabs at the time.

“The claim that I deny the Nakba, displacement, or the Palestinian narrative is another false accusation — a distortion and falsification of my words, their meaning, and their interpretation by those acting in bad faith,” he writes.

While head of an Islamist party, Abbas has positioned his faction as a moderate party which — unlike the other Arab-majority factions — is open to sitting in a governing coalition, as the party did when it joined the 2021 government headed by Naftali Bennett.

Abbas is also in talks with former police official and ex-Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz to join his party in an unprecedented move for the faction.

Religious Zionism party chief Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich slams Abbas in response as “a dangerous enemy — a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

Gilad Erdan, head of the Unity party, also criticizes the comments, saying Abbas is “deceiving the Central Elections Committee, deceiving the public, and there are those who are falling for it. He does not want a Jewish state, he wants an Islamic caliphate.”