Israel coalition talks put Arab party leader under pressure over Hamas

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Mansour Abbas faces mounting pressure from Israel’s change bloc to denounce Hamas as a prerequisite for coalition role.

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.

“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…

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