Photo: United Arab List (Ra’am) attends consultations at the President’s Residence. Office of the President. Image via Clarity with Michael Oren.
Opinion
Israel’s Arab Question
What much of the world sees as anti-Arab racism is, for Israelis, a matter of fundamental security.
Michael Oren · November 8, 2026
The Zionist parties’ refusal to accept Arab partners elicited charges of racism, even apartheid, from parts of the foreign press. Such accusations might appear to be confirmed by images of President Isaac Herzog’s pressing Ra’am party head Mansour Abbas to recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization and Abbas protesting his subjection to loyalty tests. For Israelis, though, the issue is not necessarily prejudice but rather, simply, survival. How, many ask, can Arab politicians who oppose even the smallest-scale IDF action serve in a government that might have to preside over an existential war? How can an Arab minister who will not recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization sit beside a prime minister such as Gadi Eisenkot whose son and two nephews were killed by Hamas? And how can Mansour Abbas who, in a candid moment, confessed that calling Hamas operatives terrorists would endanger his family, vote in favor of eliminating those terrorists?
“For Israelis, though, the issue is not necessarily prejudice but rather, simply, survival.”
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This article originally appeared on Clarity with Michael Oren.
