Ra’am Candidate Quits List in Signal of Ghanaim’s Impending Exit

The next candidate to enter the Knesset in the Ra’am list, Ala Aladeen Jabareen, resigned from the list on Sunday, in a sign that rebel Ra’am MK Mazen Ghanaim will be the next to leave.

Ghanaim has been pressured to resign from the Knesset since his vote against the Yehudah and Shomron bill last Monday.

But Jabareen, the next on the list, has extreme views and did not want to be loyal to the Israeli government. He praised Hamas rocket fire on Israeli civilians last year.

If Ghanaim resigns, he will now be replaced in the Knesset by the deputy mayor of Rahat, Ata Abu Madiam, who will give the party an MK from the South, which it has not had since the death of MK Sa’id al-Harumi last year.

Abu Madiam criticized the Yehudah and Shomron bill, but he said in a radio interview that “if I became an MK, I would vote for the faction’s decisions. I will not rebel.”

Meanwhile, the prospect of Ra’am joining a government led by Binyamin Netanyahu cannot be ruled out, party leader Mansour Abbas said on Saturday.

The Walla! news site cited Abbas as saying that should Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government be dissolved, he would not rule out any potential partnership, including with Religious Zionism leader Betzalel Smotrich and MK Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Abbas, who heads the first-ever Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition, also praised the current government’s efforts to stay afloat, saying that its possible failure has nothing to do with the novelty of an Arab party being included.