Ra'am party leader MK Mansour Abbas has surprised quite a few people of late. Abbas, the head of an Islamist Arab political party, has found himself a new BFF: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For the Left, there could be no worse surprise. The ties being forged between the two have given them an ulcer. They serve to bolster Netanyahu and benefit the Arabs. Israel's Arab citizens may discover that their relationship with the Left has never served them, leaving the Left in an even worse situation than it finds itself in today.
"I am a representative of a public that suffers a great deal. Crises, crime and violence, economic crisis," Abbas told Channel 12 News' Lucy Aharish, explaining why he had entered into negotiations with the coalition https://www.israelhayom.com/2020/11/11/joint-arab-list-outraged-at-mks-alliance-with-netanyahu/ . "I am trying to start a process that will lead to change."
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All of a sudden, instead of demonstrating constant opposition, an Arab MK is playing the same political game as everyone else. His decision was apparently the result of years of research on what methods have proved more or less effective. A rally, it seems, it less effective than pragmatism.
For the Left, this has been a blow below the belt, a genuine betrayal. The Left hates Netanyahu more than it loves the Arab public – and exactly how much they love the latter is a question in and of itself. And now they see the object of their hatred riding off into the sunset with one of their very own public figures. It's an intolerable image for them to bear. They rub their eyes. It can't be real, they say, there's no way this relationship can last.
The very possibility Netanyahu could benefit politically and also image-wise is driving the Left out of their minds, and as a result, they have opted to incite the public against this new alliance. Their argument is so racist that it overshadows the racism they accuse Netanyahu of: Political alliances among Jews are one thing, but when you bring an Arab into the equation, that's cause for condemnation.
More than anything, the detractors are trying to instill fear in the heart of every Arab who dares to cooperate with the Jews. Well, not all Jews, just the wrong Jews, meaning those on the Right. They call Abbas "Netanyahu's new pet." Abbas' response? He's aware Netanyahu is trying to use him, but he is using Netanyahu too. He's not doing any of this for the fun of it, but rather because he is loyal to the public who put him in office. His objective is not to embitter Jewish lives, but to improve Arab lives.
Netanyahu has proved that not only that a different kind of peace can be forged, but that there can be a different kind of coexistence, a coexistence based on common interests. Netanyahu's mistake is that he dared to unravel axioms of the Left, and he and his partners will be denounced as a result. From their perspective, the fact that the Arabs will benefit from this is of little importance. There are loftier purposes than that, and one in particular that is loftier than pretty much anything else: removing Netanyahu from office.
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