An Islamo-conservative, shy and funny, holds the fate of Benyamin Netanyahu in his hand. This is the incredible result of the Israeli legislative elections on Tuesday, March 23. Mansour Abbas, the boss of the United Arab List (RAAM in Hebrew), a small group from the international brotherhood of the Muslim Brotherhood, discovered himself as a kingmaker in Israel. With four out of 120 seats in the Knesset, he can save Mr. Netanyahu, who remains without a majority after four votes in less than two years.
The Prime Minister’s right-wing coalition has 59 seats at best. His opposition is fragmented: it will be difficult for him to form an alternating government. Between the two, Mr. Abbas shows a very religious and village humility. He who claims neither left nor right is careful not to triumph: “We have to be realistic. Our challenge is to establish ourselves as partners in the game of the major Israeli parties, which have always neglected and ignored the Arab vote. “
Mr. Abbas wants to break the glass ceiling under which his community, which represents 20% of the Israeli population, remains. For this, he appears as a man of compromise. The 46-year-old politician grew up and lives in Maghar, a predominantly Druze village, which has roughly as many Muslims as Christians (20%). His father, a grocer, served for a long time as a mediator in local clan and land registry disputes, on this vast wooded hill overlooking Lake Tiberias.
Precautionary advice
In his family, Mr. Abbas is the only declared Islamist. At the age of 15, he worried his father when he immersed himself in the scriptures more than in textbooks. Dentist, he opened his practice in the native village. Vice-president from the moderate branch of the Islamist movement of Israel (the one that does not boycott the elections of the Jewish state) he joined the Knesset in 2019. Thumbs up on his stomach, he listens in a tent to supporters of the village who came on Thursday on Thursday. to greet as neighbors, the Bedouins who took the road from the Negev desert (south) to congratulate him, and the Arab hierarchs who arrived in Mercedes, prayer beads in hand, who give advice of caution.
Mr. Abbas reassures them: he will defend the right of the Palestinians to build in their cramped and overcrowded cities. He wants police stations and police for his community, which suffers from an immense crime rate compared to the Jewish population. He wants state recognition of the “illegal” villages of the Negev. Peace in the territories and the creation of a Palestinian state come second in the order of its priorities.
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