Ameer Makhoul
+972 Magazine / December 1, 2025
With elections in the offing, the prime minister is plotting another term in power via delegitimizing an Arab kingmaker and suppressing voter turnout.
Benjamin Netanyahu was characteristically full of praise for U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to begin designating chapters of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations. In a brief televised address primarily used to gloat about the assassination of Hezbollah’s military chief last Sunday, the Israeli prime minister closed with a couple of sentences that have sown much speculation and concern among Palestinian citizens of Israel over the past week.
The Muslim Brotherhood “is an organization that threatens stability throughout the Middle East and beyond,” he said. “For that reason, the State of Israel has already banned part of this organization, and we are working to complete this process soon.”
Many Arab parties and civil society institutions quickly concluded that Netanyahu was signalling his intent to target the Southern Islamic Movement and its political wing, the United Arab List (known by its Hebrew acronym, Ra’am). One of the four principal Arab-led parties in Israel, Ra’am is the only one to have served in an Israeli government after joining the anti-Netanyahu coalition led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid in 2021. Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas accused the prime minister of “trying to steal” next year’s election by delegitimizing a party poised to challenge his ruling coalition. A source close to Netanyahu subsequently denied that his comments were related to Ra’am.
Regardless of who or what Netanyahu was referring to, his threat was both a tactical and ideological signal. It was an attempt to blur distinctions between disparate Islamic actors (shifting seamlessly between the Shiite Hezbollah and the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, as if they were not separated by profound ideological and theological rifts); to justify current and future crackdowns on Arab political movements inside Israel; to shape the battlefield of the upcoming election; and to advance his longstanding project of diluting Palestinian political agency.
Netanyahu’s campaign against Islamist actors in Israel began in earnest in 2015, when his government banned the Northern Branch of the Islamic movement and confiscated its assets. The ban was imposed not through criminal proceedings but via an administrative order grounded in British Mandate-era emergency regulations, which the state uses to act on “classified” intelligence assessments rather than admissible legal evidence.
Like many Islamist currents in the region, the Islamic Movement in Israel — which emerged in the 1970s — had long combined a political wing with an extensive network of religious, charitable, educational, and endowment institutions. But in 1996, it split into a “Northern Branch” and a “Southern Branch” over a disagreement as to whether to participate in Knesset elections: The Southern Branch chose to enter parliamentary politics while the Northern Branch opted to focus on grassroots religious and social work.
In January of this year, Israel reignited its crackdown on the movement by banning the “Peace Dissemination Committees,” an initiative linked to the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel (which the government has also sought to outlaw) and led by Sheikh Raed Salah, the former head of the already-banned Northern Branch. The Southern Branch, by contrast, is fully integrated into parliamentary life through Ra’am, which currently holds the largest number of Knesset seats among Arab parties.
Ra’am’s pragmatic, service-oriented politics has long put it at odds with other Palestinians parties in Israel. Its decision to join the so-called “change government” under Lapid and Bennett in 2021 made it the first Arab party to enter a ruling Zionist coalition, helping to push Netanyahu into the opposition. And in Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas’ eyes, the party secured tangible gains both in the fight against organized crime and in slowing mass home demolitions in the Negev’s unrecognized villages.
Likud and its religious-Zionist allies promptly branded the Bennett-Lapid coalition illegitimate for relying on an Arab party, fuelling right-wing hostility toward Ra’am and turning it into a convenient symbol for attacking the legitimacy of any government supported by Arab legislators — despite the fact that Netanyahu himself opened coalition talks with Ra’am in an effort to secure its support earlier that same year.
For his part, Abbas has repeatedly and publicly rejected any organizational, ideological, or political affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood. He openly declares his willingness to join any government that accepts him and defines his mission not as shaping Israel’s strategic or security agenda but as advancing the daily priorities of Arab citizens, foremost by combating the plague of organized crime — enabled by state neglect and active complicity — that has claimed the lives of 236 Palestinians in Israel this year alone.
With the Northern Branch already outlawed and the Southern Branch both structurally distinct from — and denying any affiliation with — the Muslim Brotherhood, Netanyahu’s threat to “complete the process” raises an important question: What, exactly, does he intend to outlaw, and whom is he actually targeting?
A decisive election
Assuming Netanyahu was referring to Ra’am, as most Arab parties immediately concluded, his threat can be partly understood through the lens of strategizing ahead of Israel’s next election. The country is expected to go to the polls sometime between spring 2026 and November at the latest, though there is some suggestion that the government may seek to delay the election under the pretext of national security concerns. What is clear is that Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition, the Zionist opposition, and the parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel — the three major blocs of Israeli electoral politics — all view the coming election as decisive.
After reshaping Israel’s institutional system — through weakening the High Court, subordinating security institutions to the political echelon, and transforming the police, army, and Shin Bet from a system loyal to the state and its laws to one that is loyal to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir — the far right sees a path to permanent supremacy. Their agenda includes annexing the West Bank, accelerating the Judaization of the Negev, and sharply curtailing the political freedoms and civic participation of Palestinian citizens, all in pursuit of eliminating the Palestinian question altogether.
The Zionist opposition views the coming election as a final chance to “regain the state” from the likes of Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, and to re-establish previous institutional balances. Meanwhile, the Arab public views itself as experiencing a form of political ethnic cleansing in its homeland and seeks to unseat the Netanyahu–Smotrich–Ben Gvir government accordingly.
Netanyahu’s overriding objective is to ensure that his own bloc surpasses 50 out of the Knesset’s 120 seats. With that showing, the Zionist opposition cannot reach the 61-seat majority needed to form a government unless it turns to an Arab party, namely Ra’am. Netanyahu’s strategy, therefore, is to pre-emptively delegitimize any coalition that relies on Arab representation — a message now reinforced by mainstream Israeli media and amplified by a post-Gaza genocide mindset that treats Arab political participation as inherently suspect.
Netanyahu’s political survival depends on blocking Ra’am from becoming a kingmaker. If he can keep Ra’am outside any future coalition, the opposition’s path to power collapses. Even with just 51 or 52 seats, Netanyahu could drag Israel through repeated election cycles while remaining in place as caretaker prime minister. That scenario could pave the way for a national unity government with the Zionist opposition — something that may be viewed favourably by the Trump administration.
Against this backdrop, the four Arab parties — Hadash, Balad, Ta’al, and Ra’am, plus any new entrants — face two possible electoral paths. One is to revive a Joint List based on a technical alliance that maximizes representation while allowing each party to act independently after the vote, as Ra’am demands. If Arab turnout were to reach the heights of 20 years ago, such a list could win 15-17 seats. The alternative is Ra’am running alone while the other three parties form a bloc, a configuration that polls suggest would only yield 10–12 seats combined.
Despite public sentiment favouring unity, political dynamics currently tilt toward the less advantageous two-list scenario, though public pressure may still push the parties toward a single slate. (The prospect of Arab unity has even led some on the right to consider increasing the number of Knesset members from 120 to 210 or even 240, ensuring absolute right-wing dominance under their calculations that Israeli public opinion is steadily shifting to the right and that religious Zionist and Haredi communities exhibit high voter turnout.)
From Netanyahu’s perspective, a divided Arab vote is more dangerous than a unified one. Two Arab lists increase the likelihood that the Zionist opposition — despite its public insistence to the contrary — could quietly assemble a governing coalition with Ra’am, bringing Netanyahu’s long rule to an end. A unified Joint List, on the other hand, would likely depress the opposition’s total below 60 seats, effectively blocking it from forming a government and strengthening Netanyahu’s grip on power.
This is why some analysts believe his remarks were also a calculated provocation aimed at rattling Ra’am and pressuring them into a Joint List with the other Arab parties. Nonetheless, the prime minister’s walk-back suggests he may keep Ra’am available as an option for his own future coalition should his ability to hold onto power require it.
The workings of an ideologue
Though Netanyahu’s remarks certainly seem driven by electoral considerations, it would be a mistake to view them solely as the manoeuvrings of a politician desperate to stay in power. The prime minister is also an ideologue: a populist, far-right leader whose central project is preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.
That project must be pursued across all of historic Palestine: severing any linkage of Gaza’s fate to the West Bank; consolidating Israel’s claim to Jerusalem as its eternal capital; entrenching de facto annexation of the West Bank and undermining Palestinian sovereignty there; and weakening, wherever possible, the political power of Palestinian citizens of Israel. It is no coincidence that both his coalition and the Zionist opposition rushed to pass a resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
While Arab parties had good reason to read Netanyahu’s latest comments as targeting the Southern Islamic Movement, another perspective suggests they may portend a wider set of intentions. He could have been hinting at moves against the Islamic waqf in Jerusalem, including inside the Al-Aqsa Compound; equally, he could have been referring to steps against the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens — the national umbrella body of Arab municipalities and political factions — or to charitable and educational institutions affiliated with the Southern Islamic Movement.
But it is hard to dispute that Netanyahu’s fear-mongering about the Muslim Brotherhood at this moment — the first time an Israeli official has used the term in reference to Israel’s two Islamic movements — represents an attempt to leverage Trump’s anti-Brotherhood push to invigorate his broader project to constrain Palestinian political participation. Both Netanyahu and the Zionist opposition understand that disqualifying any Arab party would trigger massive Arab voter abstention — a development that would hand the right wing a sweeping and potentially enduring parliamentary majority.
The opposition’s silence after Netanyahu’s statement signals both complicity and political opportunism: a bid to remain palatable to the increasingly right-wing Israeli public and to exact symbolic revenge on Palestinians, wherever they are.
This strategy to suppress voter turnout builds on an existing set of tools, many of them tested in previous elections. These include installing surveillance cameras at polling stations in Arab towns; exerting political control over polling committees in Arab localities by appointing religious Zionist or settler activists in key roles; provoking confrontations at polling sites that could later justify annulling ballot box results; and flooding social media with fake Arabic-language profiles encouraging an election boycott.
The most decisive tool, however, remains party disqualification. Any banning of Ra’am, for instance, would produce a political shock with nationwide consequences.
Netanyahu has already reshaped the institutional landscape to facilitate such measures. He appointed a new head of the Shin Bet responsible for issuing the confidential security assessments required for disqualification and, thanks to the government’s judicial overhaul, the Supreme Court’s ability to intervene has been greatly curtailed. And Ra’am is by no means the sole target; the Balad Party and Hadash MK Ofer Cassif are also in the crosshairs, especially after the latter publicly supported South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
Whether Netanyahu ultimately moves to ban Ra’am or any other Arab political institution remains to be seen. But the threat itself is real and existential. With one ambiguous sentence, the prime minister succeeded in seizing the emotional and political horizons of nearly 2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel. He has created a pervasive sense of doubt and confusion, a form of psychological manipulation that exposes the fragility of Arab political institutions.
Palestinian citizens of Israel are in the midst of a dangerous moment that demands internal dialogue about safeguarding our political role, demographic presence, and collective future. It requires direct engagement with Israeli public opinion to counter both coalition and opposition complicity in stripping Palestinian communities of political legitimacy, and the building of a Jewish-Arab popular alliance capable of challenging the ethos of vengeance and imagining a path toward just and lasting peace.
Internationally, too, more engagement with diplomats, UN bodies, and global institutions is essential. The challenges are serious, but surrendering to despair is not an option.
Ameer Makhoul is a writer and political activist from Haifa; he is currently a researcher at The Progress Center for Policies in London, and previously directed the NGO Ittijah, worked at the Institute for Palestine Studies, and headed the High Follow-Up Committee’s Popular Committee for Defending Freedoms
