Mansour Abbas has already broken the taboo - now it is time to demand more | Amnon Be'eri-Sulitzeanu

The government of the camp seeking to replace Benjamin Netanyahu — Eisenkot, Lapid, Bennett, Golan, and Lieberman — has no majority without Arab Knesset members. They know it, and we know it. And this is even before we spoke about the expected joining of Yoav Segalovitz to Ra'am, which will bring it, it seems, to seven to eight mandates. In simple Hebrew, Ra'am's bargaining power will be unprecedented for an Arab party in Israel.

This is exactly the reason why Mansour Abbas must demand a strategic partnership based on more than budgets, five-year plans, and improving the standard of living for Arab citizens. In recent years, Abbas has revolutionized Israeli politics. To break the long-standing boycott on partnership with an Arab party, he had to convince the Jewish public that Ra'am is not coming to undermine the very legitimacy of the state, but to be a partner in its management. He chose to focus on the fight against crime, housing, infrastructure, and budgets, and to distance the discussion as much as possible from issues of the occupation and the Palestinian identity of Israel's Arab citizens.

This was a brave strategy, with a personal and political price tag, but it succeeded — Abbas broke the taboo on an Arab party's partnership in a coalition. Now it is time to move to the next stage. Most Arab citizens want to see their representatives influencing the government and achieving results. Those who criticized Abbas in Arab society did so because he avoided almost completely dealing with the national identity of his voters, their rights, the reality in the territories and in Gaza, and the aspiration to end the conflict.

Now Abbas must use the political power he has accumulated to change not only the composition of the government, but also the rules of partnership. Ra'am does not need to choose between citizenship and nationality, between the fight against crime and the promotion of a political solution, and between five-year plans and the recognition of the collective rights of the Palestinians who are citizens of Israel. It can — and should — do both. Arab-Jewish partnership is not based on erasing identities. If Segalovitz joins Ra'am, he does not become less Jewish, and Abbas does not become less Palestinian.

If Jewish parties are allowed to talk about security, about Jerusalem, about the future of the territories, and about the identity of the state, there is no reason why an Arab party should be considered a legitimate partner only as long as it deals with roads, budgets, and garbage collection. Such a demand is an expression of inequality. The camp seeking to replace Netanyahu will have to internalize this.

If the camp seeks Ra'am's support, it will have to accept it as it really is: a party representing a public that is both citizens of Israel and part of the Palestinian people. If Abbas gathers the courage to take this step, he will not only increase Ra'am's bargaining power in coalition negotiations. He may also expand his base of support in Arab society.

The author is a co-CEO at 'Abraham Initiatives'.