In unprecedented move, Abbas and Segalovitz announce joint run, bringing Jewish lawmaker to Arab party’s slate

Ra’am party head Mansour Abbas and Yoav Segalovitz — a Jewish, Zionist former police official, lawmaker and deputy minister — announced Monday evening that Segalovitz will run with Ra’am, an Arab party, in the October 27 election.

The announcement capped weeks of speculation that Segalovitz would take the unprecedented step of joining forces with Ra’am. While the predominantly Arab party Hadash has long included a Jewish lawmaker, Ra’am has never done so. Segalovitz is expected to be placed at No. 2, behind Abbas, on the Ra’am slate. The party has been polling at around 4-5 seats.

“In every generation, there is a moment when fear and hope stand together in the same room. This evening, in this room, hope won out,” Abbas said as he stood next to Segalovitz at a joint press conference. “Welcome Yoav,” he said, “we have work to do.”

Ra’am emerged as the kingmaker after the 2021 election, when its support was crucial to the formation of the Bennett-Lapid government. Polls suggest it could find itself in a similar position after the October 27 vote. Opposition frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot has said he would consider partnering with any party that recognizes Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, endorses the values of the Declaration of Independence and commits to all Israelis performing national service, but has refused to be drawn on whether Ra’am, with or without Segalovitz, would meet those criteria.

Ra’am was founded in 1996, and its name is an abbreviation that stands for United Arab List. The party was traditionally a religious Muslim one, but over the past year it has separated itself from the religious institutions that had dominated it. In recent years, Abbas has led an effort to distinguish Ra’am from the three other mainly Arab parties, which are running in October on a joint slate, and has been focusing on Jewish-Arab cooperation and domestic issues affecting Israel’s Arab community, such as crime, rather than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ra’am’s top priority is eliminating crime and violence against innocent citizens, Abbas said at Monday’s press conference, asserting that every Arab parent goes to sleep asking themselves, “Will my children return home safely?”

The only way to accomplish this goal is to create partnerships and “to see the other as a human being, not as an enemy,” he continued, praising Segalovitz as “an officer who has stood up to criminals his whole life without asking what their religion is” and “an honest, quiet man who doesn’t seek headlines.”

Segalovitz established the police’s Lahav 433 serious crime unit and is a former commander of the police’s Investigations and Intelligence Division. He was credited with helping reduce crime in Arab Israeli communities during his tenure as deputy minister for public security in the 2021-2022 Bennett-Lapid government.

Surveys have shown that the inclusion of Segalovitz, a former member of the centrist Yesh Atid party who recently resigned from the Knesset, could boost Ra’am’s showing at the polls.

As for why an Arab party needs a Jewish police officer, “my answer is simple,” Abbas said. “I’m not looking for someone who is like me. I’m looking for someone who knows how to do the job. And the Arab citizen who buried his son doesn’t ask what the policeman’s religion is. He asks why no one comes.”

Addressing his decision to run with Abbas, Segalovitz said he was guided by Zionist and Jewish values and that while he and Abbas do not intend to change each other, “it is possible to cooperate politically based on trust, recognition of difference, and commitment to joint action.”

“The common assertion that after October 7 it is impossible to maintain a political partnership with Arab parties is baseless and false,” Segalovitz continued, adding that he wants to “break the paradigm of how political partnership is created.”

Segalovitz said he wanted to forge the alliance “precisely at this time, when there is such social polarization between Jews and Arabs.” He said he hoped to “build a real political bridge,” while acknowledging that it would face difficulties. “Even if the bridge is shaky or unstable, it will be built, and it will serve as a foundation for political cooperation going forward,” he said.

Segalovitz will not become a member of the Ra’am party but will run on the Ra’am slate in a technical alliance. He will retain freedom of action in the Knesset while Ra’am will not change its constitution or decision-making processes.

While reports have previously said Segalovitz was conditioning the move on Ra’am recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, there was no such announcement on Monday.

Channel 12 reported that one of Segalovitz’s top priorities will be to advance national service for Arab citizens.

A Times of Israel poll showed earlier this month that 56 percent of opposition voters would support including Ra’am with Segalovitz in a possible coalition, while 30% opposed doing so. The poll found that if Ra’am joined a governing coalition, it would give the opposition bloc a 63-seat majority in the 120-seat Knesset.

Bitter criticism from the Netanyahu coalition

Responding to the announcement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party accused Segalovitz of seeking to establish a Palestinian state. “Even Segalovitz won’t hide the fact that Mansour Abbas refuses to recognize Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and is pushing to establish a Palestinian state,” it said. “Together with [Gadi] Eisenkot, [Avigdor] Liberman and Yair Golan, they are going to establish a Palestinian state government.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called it “a joint conspiracy by the left to pave the way for a future government with the Muslim Brotherhood.” Likud lawmaker Tally Gotliv called Segalovitz Abbas’s “pet Jew” and warned that the move could lead to “the imposition of sharia law on Israel.”

After the announcement, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote on X that “Eisenkot has no coalition without Abbas,” and accused Segalovitz of joining Ra’am in order to legitimize its participation in a future Eisenkot-led government. Ohana described Ra’am as an “Islamist list whose members are unable to say ‘Hamas is a terrorist organization,’” and argued that such a government would be unable to fight Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran’s nuclear program.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir posted an image depicting Abbas and Segalovitz wearing keffiyehs alongside Hamas flags, while Energy Minister Eli Cohen said the move was intended to legitimize what he called Abbas’ “fifth column.”

Abbas recently sparked controversy when he called on Israel to recognize an “independent Palestinian state” during a speech to party delegates at their convention in Taibe.

He subsequently was reported to have reassured opposition party leaders that his belief in the Palestinian right to self-determination would not be translated into a demand for policy change during potential coalition talks after the election. There is currently widespread opposition in Israel to establishing a Palestinian state.

Abbas has said repeatedly that Netanyahu tried to recruit Ra’am when attempting to build a coalition in 2021. Religious Zionism leader Bezalel Smotrich, Netanyahu’s finance minister, said he prevented this.