Ra'am

Wikipedia describes it as Islamist (historically) and socially conservative, with a base among religious Arab citizens and Negev Bedouin. It holds 5 of 120 Knesset seats and was part of the 2021–2022 governing coalition. It is a list in the 2026 Knesset election of 27 October 2026.

History

Ra'am was formed before the 1996 election as an alliance of the Arab Democratic Party and the southern faction of the Islamic Movement. It ran inside the Joint List in 2015, 2019 and 2020 and left in January 2021. In June 2021 it joined Naftali Bennett's coalition, the first independent Arab party in an Israeli government, and won 4 seats in 2021 and 5 in 2022, then returned to opposition. In late 2025 it announced it would become a civic party and, in January 2026, that it would accept Jewish members.

Positions

Under Abbas, Wikipedia says, the party focuses on crime, jobs, housing and infrastructure for Arab citizens rather than mainly on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and is willing to work with parties opposed to Netanyahu. It supports a two-state solution. Wikipedia lists its ideology as Islamism, conservatism and social conservatism, and reports that it reportedly separated from the Islamic Movement in July 2026.

Controversies

On 23 September 2026 the Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Ra'am and the Joint List from the 2026 election; Otzma Yehudit and Likud had sought this. Abbas called the decision political. On 2–3 October 2026 the High Court of Justice, in a nine-justice panel, unanimously overturned the disqualification, saying the grounds in Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset apply only to extreme cases. The ruling is final.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia · JNS