The Islamist Ra’am party
| ...the political party of the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement, the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in Israel. The militant arm is cleverly called the Northern Branch, because it’s based in Umm al Fahm in the Galilee... |
The decision is largely declarative at this stage, because parliament is in recess, though opposition sources said they saw it as a further opportunity to weaken the coalition, encourage defections, and bring down the government.
According to sources quoted in Hebrew media Sunday, the measure — which will last for two weeks and is coordinated with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid — is aimed to ease the pressure on the party, as well as prevent a permanent break with the government.
Ra’am denounced Israeli security forces over the violence at the Jerusalem holy site, and one of the Islamist party’s politicians threatened to quit the coalition. Ra’am chief Mansour Abbas, however, has downplayed such a prospect and issued repeated calls for calm.
The decision on the temporary freeze was reached during a Sunday meeting of the Shura council of the Southern Islamic Movement — Ra’am’s umbrella organization — to address the violence at the Jerusalem holy site.
The council can make decisions regarding the party and also has the authority to order Knesset members to resign from the coalition.
Founded in the 1980s, the Islamic Movement has been thrust into the spotlight over the past year after Ra’am, which has four Knesset seats, joined the coalition government, the first Arab party to do so in decades.
The movement is informally divided between its more radical "northern" branch and the "southern" leadership, which is considered more moderate. Israel banned the northern branch for alleged terror ties in 2015.
In contrast to some of his firebrand
...
firebrandsare noted more for audio volume and the quantity of spittle generated than for any actual logic in their arguments...
predecessors, Abbas has adopted a pragmatic approach.
Earlier on Sunday, a senior religious figure in the Southern Islamic Movement called on Ra’am to bolt the coalition over the festivities.
The sources said that since the tensions surrounding the Temple Mount have risen as the Knesset is in the midst of its spring recess, Ra’am officials are hoping that by the time parliament reconvenes on May 9, the situation will calm down.
However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
some suggested that the opposition will use the freeze in Ra’am’s membership to intensify its efforts to topple the government.
And Ra’am MK Walid Taha said shortly before the decision was announced that the coalition was "apparently" headed for collapse. "We thought this government would behave differently," he said, citing what he called "provocative" visits by Jews to Temple Mount as the cause of the latest violence. The government, he charged, "allowed a few hundred fascist
...anybody you disagree with, damn them...s" to stir up trouble.
The current government has been brought to the brink of collapse in recent days after MK Idit Silman, a member of Bennett’s Yamina party, quit the coalition, causing it to lose its razor-thin majority. The 120-member Knesset is now deadlocked, with both the coalition and opposition holding 60 seats apiece.
Some have suggested that the opposition’s Joint List, a majority-Arab party that is separate from Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition bloc, could help the coalition pass some votes and prevent its fall in a no-confidence vote. The party itself has issued conflicting messages on the matter.