A lawmaker from Israel’s Arab minority said on Sunday that she was returning to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s government coalition after she briefly bolted in solidarity with the Palestinians, Reuters news agency reported.
Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, of the liberal Meretz party, said in a statement that she reversed course in order to “make gains addressing the needs of the Arab community” and after several of its local leaders placed her “under immense pressure” to do so.
#Meretz MK Ghaida Rinawie-Zoabi is returning to vote with the #coalition following a meeting Sunday with #YeshAtid party chairman Yair Lapid. https://t.co/XTiatScHkO
— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) May 22, 2022
Her walkout on Thursday had left Bennett’s alliance of nationalist, centrist, left-wing and Arab parties in control of 59 of the Knesset’s 120 seats. That made him vulnerable to any parliamentary vote to dissolve the government.
Zoabi said she was leaving in protest against an escalation in violence at a Jerusalem holy site as well as tactics by Israeli police at the May 13 funeral of a Palestinian journalist.
Welcoming her return to the coalition, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said he and Zoabi had “held an open, candid and circumspect dialogue about the real needs of Arab society”.
Israel’s ruling coalition became a minority in parliament on Thursday when MK Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi pulled her support for the government, throwing Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s hold on power into question.https://t.co/pAflwQGcvE pic.twitter.com/nOA2y71UDr
— The Palestine Chronicle (@PalestineChron) May 22, 2022
Arabs, most of them Muslim, make up 21% of Israel’s population and often complain of discrimination by the Jewish majority. Many of them identify with the Palestinians.
Bennett’s coalition lost its slight majority last month when a lawmaker from his own party quit.
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
