Abbas Says Government Track Being Worked On Combines Haredi Parties and Ra’am

Ra'am chairman Mansour Abbas said on Wednesday, 11 November, that the track now being worked on to form a government is cooperation between the Haredi parties and Ra'am, with possible backing from the Joint List. He spoke in an interview with Radio A-Shams, three days after Gadi Eisenkot received the mandate to form a government. Abbas said he could not give details, and that some want to advance the formation of a government while others want to foil it. He said Ra'am would do everything it could for the one candidate holding the mandate to succeed, so that the current government could be replaced. In an interview with Kan Reshet Bet the same morning, Abbas said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech at the swearing-in of the 26th Knesset the day before had put him at risk. "It was a dangerous speech, endangering my life and my family's life," Abbas said, adding that he faces threats from four directions: Arab citizens, Jewish citizens, Palestinian residents and crime organizations. On 103FM he recalled the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Abbas also confirmed that Natan Eshel, a Netanyahu confidant, had been in contact with him, asking about Ra'am's position on the bill known as the defendant law and whether it would join a coalition replacing Netanyahu's government; he said he did not reply. He stood by his account, which Likud has denied, that Netanyahu told him at the Balfour residence that he and Yahya Sinwar understood each other, and offered that both of them take a polygraph. In his 10 November speech, Netanyahu attacked Ra'am and the prospect of a government relying on Arab parties, citing statements from 2015 that he attributed to Abbas. Abbas, who stayed in the plenum for Hatikvah while Joint List members walked out, said Ra'am wanted to show statesmanship and responsibility.