JERUSALEM — Raam leader Mansour Abbas announced this week that former Yesh Atid lawmaker Yoav Segalovich will run second on the party's electoral slate. Segalovich, an Israeli Jewish politician and openly Zionist, served as a former police major-general—an unusual combination for a conservative Islamist Arab party.
Jewish participation in political lists representing Palestinian citizens of Israel is not rare. Hadash has included Jewish candidates and lawmakers for decades, with Ofer Cassif currently serving in the Knesset as one of its Jewish members. The distinct aspect of the Abbas-Segalovich arrangement lies in the specific political voice chosen: a Zionist former senior police commander whose biography aligns with the Israeli mainstream.
Under the arrangement, Segalovich will join the electoral list and parliamentary faction but will not become a member of Raam itself. The party's constitution and internal decision-making structure are expected to remain unchanged. Segalovich is also slated to retain the freedom to vote independently on issues where ideological distances are clear, such as religion and state, security and LGBTQ rights.
Segalovich stated he would only join Raam if the party recognizes Israel as a Jewish state.
Segalovich holds unusual credibility among Arab local leaders due to his work on organized crime. During his tenure as deputy public security minister in the Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid coalition governments, he became one of the few senior Jewish officials associated with a governmental program that actively confronted crime. This background benefits Abbas, as criminal violence remains a pressing concern for Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Since breaking with the Joint List and joining the Bennett-Lapid coalition in 2021, Abbas has pursued a consistent political strategy aimed at changing the political value of Raam's Knesset seats. Segalovich's presence could temper opposition within the broad anti-Netanyahu "change bloc" to including the Islamist party in a potential post-election coalition. Right-wing bloc leaders, including Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu's Avigdor Liberman, have stated they will only sit with Zionist parties. Segalovich could address this concern directly.
Raam has recently taken steps to depart from its religious roots, emphasizing a civic identity. This shift aims to make the party more palatable as a potential coalition partner to right-wing opposition parties. While Raam is largely open to joining any government, other Arab parties like Hadash and Ta'al would likely only consider supporting an anti-Netanyahu bloc from the opposition, and Balad remains opposed to supporting any Zionist-led coalition.
As Raam increasingly defines its success through its acceptability to Zionist coalition partners, there is a temptation to push the Palestinian national question further outside its political program, according to Palestinian political researcher Ehab Jabareen.
