T. Belman. This suggestion bears thinking about. We don’t want to join the left in accepting an Arab party in the government or do we? In the past the right preferred not to form a government if it had t invite the Arab Party though it considered it. It would make it easier to form a rightwing government if we could consider including an Arab party.
On the positive side, it would be best if the Arabs were the ones empowered to clean up crime in the Arab cities. But isn’t Ben Gvir doing this already?
United Arab List leader MK Mansour Abbas says he would join government if granted power to handle crime in Arab sector.
United Arab List leader MK Mansour Abbas on Wednesday spoke with the Arab language Radio Nas and said that he would be ready to join Netanyahu’s government.<
With this, Abbas posed a condition: “We are ready to join the Netanyahu government today if we receive the portfolio for ending crime and violence in the Arab community. I challenge Netanyahu if he really cares about the lives of the Arab citizens.”
About a month ago, answering a question posed by Israel National News, Abbas discussed the claim that he is not interested in a meeting with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir: “Ben-Gvir doesn’t want to meet with us, and he paralyzed the entire system and moved police from Arab towns to other towns and therefore the result is horrifying, we are paying in human lives, the numbers speak for themselves.”
Regarding Ben-Gvir’s claims that his party is voting against laws to fight illegal weapons and criminal extortion, he said: “He always lies about this, we support any immediate proportional step that would help fight crime in the Arab sector.”
Related articles:
- ‘Ben Gvir doesn’t want to meet with us’
- Arab MKs demand: Fire Ben-Gvir
- ‘I spoke to Levin, but we didn’t discuss the judicial reform’
- Abbas’ demands in exchange for supporting judicial reform
I think Netanyahu will go for it.
@Ted
I don’t think that Israel should be expanding the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood over the Arab community more than has already been done. I do find it interesting that Abbas has changed his position in entering the govt. I wonder if his change of mind is possibly not due to Ben Gvir’s inability to address the problem in the Arab communities, but rather due to Ben Gvir’s ability to do so without Abbas. Providing the local chapter of the MB with the claim that they alone are capable of providing the Israeli Arabs the calm and protections from rampant crime would only serve to strengthen the MB, drawing the youth of the Arab street around them, and this is quite unsettling. Irregardless of why Abbas is entertaining partering with Bibi, however, Bibi should resist doing so.
I can appreciate that it would be nice if the Arabs could deal with their own crime issues, but unfortunately, Israel has no Arab parties with whom they should be acting to empower. Instead, I look forward to the day when the Islamist parties might be banned from running at all. Til some Arab party which can openly and honestly support the govt in which it serves while speaking in Hebrew, English and Arabic, I would argue that Israel should shun the use of the Arab parties. Personally, even then I would look for an alternative to their use, to be honst.