How an obscure centrist politician could be key to defeating Netanyahu in October

JTA — At a barbecue on a Netanya rooftop earlier this month, MK Yoav Segalovitz, a politician most people outside Israel have never heard of, told the members of the leading opposition party Yesh Atid that he would not be running with them in the upcoming October election.

It’s a decision that could reshape Israel’s political landscape and determine whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will lose the October 27 election.

Segalovitz, 67, who formerly headed the Israel Police’s Investigations and Intelligence Division, is planning to join Ra’am, an Arab party that was the kingmaker in the 2021 elections. Pollster Yousef Makladeh, who spoke with Segalovitz prior to his leaving the party, told Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the move had been under discussion for months.

In an official statement last week, Ra’am’s chairman Mansour Abbas and Segalovitz said they had met and held a “cordial and positive” discussion about the possibility of Segalovitz joining Ra’am’s slate in the upcoming Knesset elections. The two agreed to continue direct talks in an effort to advance the matter.

If that indeed happens, it would send a seismic shock though the Israeli political system on two fronts: Segalovitz would be the first member of a Zionist party to join an Arab-led party in decades; and that party would be in a position to join other opposition groups to pry control of the next Israeli government away from Netanyahu.

The willingness of Ra’am, Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party and Naftali Bennett’s New Right party to join up and form a coalition in 2021 led by Bennett and Lapid provided the needed seats to push Netanyahu out of power after 12 consecutive years as prime minister. The first coalition in Israeli history to take office with the support of an Arab party was unprecedented — and viewed by many as a historic breakthrough in Jewish-Arab political cooperation.

However, the partnership proved difficult, with Ra'am lawmakers often clashing with their coalition partners over various policy matters and Knesset votes — and particularly those relating to security matters.

The question in 2026 is: Could it happen again?

Israeli polls have shown that the election could produce a situation in which neither Netanyahu’s coalition nor the opposition bloc secures the 61 seats needed to form a government. The opposition’s Jewish parties have consistently polled at approximately 58 to 60 seats, sometimes managing to hit 61. Netanyahu’s bloc trails with roughly 50.

That deadlock has thrust Ra’am, led by MK Mansour Abbas, back into the spotlight. Most recent polls give the party between five and seven seats, potentially making it the kingmaker once again.

Founded in 1996, Ra’am, whose name is an Arabic acronym meaning United Arab List, had until recently been a religious Arab party with roots in the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement. It had been part of the traditional bloc of Arab parties in the Knesset until Abbas split away, as part of his strategy to shift the party’s focus from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to practical achievements for Israel’s Arab society.

Makladeh, who has conducted surveys for Channel 13 and political parties across Israel’s political spectrum, describes Ra’am as “the missing piece of the puzzle” that could lift the opposition bloc “to 62 or 63 seats.”

In 2021, there was a shedding of some of the longstanding reluctance to consider an Arab party in the coalition, for those who saw the political necessity of doing so in order to remove Netanyahu from office. Netanyahu himself is widely reported to have spoken with Abbas about some form of a political partnership. This time around, the prospect of an Arab party in the coalition prompts more wariness among many Israelis, particularly this early in the election cycle when it is unclear if it will be absolutely necessary to do so.

Political commentator Nadav Perry, host of one of Israel’s most influential political podcasts, says that the party’s ties to conservative Muslim religious leadership, together with the rapid collapse of the 2021 government and the trauma of the Hamas-led attack on Ocober. 7, 2023, had effectively pushed the idea of Ra’am joining another coalition with Jewish parties back to “square one.”

The addition of Segalovitz to Ra’am could change that by making the party more palatable to the Israeli public and could expand its voting base.

Ameer Bisharat, the former director-general of the National Committee of Arab Local Council Heads, added that Arab Israelis are “hungry for change.”

“Change can come through political power, and Abbas understands that very well. He is trying to create that political power,” Bisharat said

JTA reached out to both Ra’am and Segalovitz for comment. Segalovitz’s spokesperson declined to comment, while Ra’am did not respond to a request for comment.

Segalovitz has been a member of the centrist Lapid-led Yesh Atid party, which emphasizes secular rights and opposition to draft exemptions for Haredi, or ultra- Orthodox, yeshiva students, since 2016. He later served as deputy public security minister in the Bennett-Lapid government. In that role, Segalovitz was the public face of the government’s efforts to combat violent crime in Israel’s Arab communities. During his tenure, the number of murders in Arab communities declined sharply, before rising dramatically again after the government fell.

Bisharat, who worked with Segalovitz and now advises the public policy department at the Accord Institute on Arab voting patterns, said the Bennett-Lapid government was “successful” for Arab society. It helped build trust between the government and Arab citizens and it presided during a decline in violent crime in the Arab communities in Israel.

Under Segalovitz’s leadership, a plan was developed to combat crime in Arab communities, focusing on the main drivers of crime, improving case clearance rates and strengthening cooperation among the various authorities, which was not co...

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