Israel coalition talks put Arab party leader under pressure over Hamas

The question of whether Mansour Abbas, the leader of Israel’s United Arab List (Ra’am), is willing to recognise the Palestinian group Hamas as a “terrorist” organisation may determine whether his party will play a role in the country’s next government.

According to Israel’s Ynet news website, Abbas has signalled to parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would agree to the designation in exchange for a “genuine partnership” in a coalition led by Gadi Eisenkot, who has been tasked with forming a new government after last month’s elections.

Eisenkot has made recognising Hamas as a “terrorist” group one of the conditions for joining his prospective coalition. He has also demanded that Abbas recognise Israel as a Jewish and democratic state – despite Abbas’s own identity as a Palestinian citizen of Israel.

But on Wednesday, Abbas denied that he had made a declaration on Hamas. Earlier in the week, he had simply reiterated Ra’am’s support for disarming Hamas, and condemning “terrorism”.

The demands concerning Hamas and recognising Israel as a Jewish state pose a problem for Abbas, whose party represents Palestinian citizens of Israel – around 20 percent of the population, excluding the millions who live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

He wants to join the government – and has previously done so in the past, in 2021 – seeing it as a way to improve the lives of Palestinian citizens of Israel, and force Netanyahu and other far-right figures out of power.

But declaring Hamas a “terrorist” group would be seen by critics as tantamount to supporting the Israeli narrative, during a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed more than 74,600 Palestinians.

Ehab Jabareen, an analyst and a Palestinian citizen of Israel, told Al Jazeera that Eisenkot’s conditions are intended to make a partnership with Ra’am more acceptable to his Jewish Israeli supporters and coalition partners.

“Eisenkot is telling them practically that Ra’am’s votes will help him form the government, and that this partnership will take place according to the definition he wants for the state,” Jabareen said.

Including Ra’am’s eight seats in parliament would go a long way to helping Eisenkot secure a viable coalition. His own bloc has 48 seats, but Ra’am and another Arab-led party, the Joint List, recommended him to lead the government. The Joint List, however, is more unlikely to agree to any of Eisenkot’s demands, and therefore if it does support the prospective prime minister, it will be from outside the government.

Political jockeying continues in Israel, with other factors – such as who the ultra-Orthodox parties will back, and how many of Eisenkot’s coalition partners will be willing to accept any role for Ra’am – complicating matters.

During consultations with Israeli President Isaac Herzog on November 5, Abbas was asked why he would not use the “terrorist” designation when describing Hamas. The Ra’am leader said he needed the “space to be a bridge” between Jews and Palestinians.

“Leave me also a space to protect myself and my family,” he added, saying it was an issue of “life and death”.

Jabareen warned of underlying tensions even if an agreement over the designation was reached.

“There is also a security dispute,” Jabareen said. “Signing the classification of Hamas does not determine how Ra’am will act if the government decides to resume a wide war in Gaza.”

Then there is the question of recognising Israel as a Jewish state. Abbas has previously accepted that as a political reality, saying in 2021 that the country had been established as a Jewish state. But this year he clarified that accepting that as a reality did not mean endorsing it.

“The Jewish character of the state is an existing fact that was imposed on us, and we did not choose it,” he wrote in August.

Jabareen said Abbas was trying to navigate a complex situation, ensuring that he reflects the positions and beliefs of his Palestinian base, while being more acceptable and palatable to the wider Israeli public. The analyst, however, feels that this may have gone too far in the latter direction.

“Abbas is trying to be the most loyal to the government… he is looking at the Israeli voter more than he looks at his own voter,” Jabareen said. “He took legitimacy from his voter, and now he must see how he can correct the course with the Israeli voter.”

The prospect of Ra’am joining an Eisenkot government has also been seized upon by Netanyahu, who has repeatedly focused on the perceived threat of parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel, portraying them as a danger to the state.

However, reports have emerged that Netanyahu’s close associate and former chief of staff, Natan Eshel, has contacted Abbas to gauge his stance on supporting Eisenkot.

“Publicly, Netanyahu is trying to make Ra’am’s support more politically costly for Eisenkot to secure, whether by encouraging opposition among Eisenkot’s partners or by making Abbas less willing to support him without concessions,” Jabareen said.

Abbas’s options include joining Eisenkot’s coalition, supporting a minority government from outside, or joining the opposition.

“Supporting the government from outside it may reduce the cost of having an open partnership with Eisenkot, and give Abbas greater freedom to object to government decisions,” Jabareen said.

But there is another complication. Another leading member of Eisenkot’s bloc, Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman, has repeatedly said he would oppose a minority government that is dependent on Arab-led parties.

Lieberman, a right-wing politician, has shown few signs of budging from his position, and has instead encouraged Eisenkot to partner with ultra-Orthodox parties – who were part of Netanyahu’s coalition during the last government – despite previous disputes over military conscription of Jewish religious students.

And then, even if Lieberman’s opposition is overcome, there is the potential for any future conflict, either with Palestinians or with regional states, to put any arrangement under strain, Jabareen warned.

“If it is just a short confrontation with Iran, then there is more of a chance of Abbas staying in any coalition,” Jabareen said. “But if it is a wider war in Gaza, or an escalation in Al-Aqsa or the West Bank, or even in Lebanon, that would put him under direct pressure from his supporters.”

Jabareen pointed to a similar dilemma in 2022, when Ra’am suspended its participation in the Israeli government coalition at the time over Israeli police raids and violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.

“Would Ra’am stay silent on those issues just to keep the coalition together?” Jabareen asked. “I expect it would first voice its objections and, if the escalation continued, suspend its participation.”