Meretz lawmaker Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi will return to Israel’s coalition, just three days after her resignation threatened to send the country into its fifth election in three years.
Zoabi said that she was put under massive pressure from local Arab government heads, who approached her and assured her that they “understood the reasons” behind her resignation from the coalition, after which she agreed to meet with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid.
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She added that she now understands that “the alternative to this government would result in Ben Gvir serving as public security minister,” referring to the controversial far-right lawmaker known to denounce Arab lawmakers and hold Kahanist views. In order to prevent this alternative, Zoabi says she has returned to “serve local authorities and help them fulfil the needs of Arab society.”
Rinawie Zoabi’s U-turn on Sunday came after conversations with Alternate Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. Rinawie Zoabi said in a statement that she’ll support the coalition.
The meeting was also attended by her Meretz colleague, Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Freige, and several mayors of Arab towns in Israel, but Mansour Abbas’ United Arab List was not part of the discussions.
Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett expressed confidence on Sunday that “the government will overcome all crises,” and said that he believed that the Meretz parliamentarian seems as though she “is on her way back.”
Addressing the cabinet meeting, Bennett said that “if left-wing lawmakers feel the government is too right-wing, and right-wing lawmakers feel the government is too left-wing– then it is a sign that the government is in a good place in the middle.”
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On Friday, a government source told Haaretz that “significant progress” was made in talks with Rinawie Zoabi, and that she is expected to reverse her decision in exchange for some concessions from the government.
Over the weekend, coalition members attempted to persuade Rinawie Zoabi to retract her statements. A source told Haaretz that, in return, her coalition colleagues have offered to provide economic benefits to the Arab community, including transferring funds for the construction of new wards in hospitals in Nazareth.
Rinawie Zoabi’s resignation on Thursday cited Israeli violence at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the police’s conduct at the funeral of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh as driving the “moral decision.”
Her move left the coalition with just 59 seats, two shy of a majority, after Idit Silman of Bennett’s Yamina party resigned in early April, and threatened to send the country to its fifth election in three years.
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