On November 30th, in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List (Ra’am) party in the Israeli Knesset, urged various Palestinian factions to abandon violence and pursue a Palestinian state through political means. Abbas, a Muslim Arab Israeli citizen, condemned violence against innocent people, emphasizing that such actions contradict Islamic and human values. He also criticized Hamas for causing harm to the Palestinian cause and advocated a non-violent approach.
Abbas emphasized the failure of past attempts to use violence in the political struggle, underscoring the high toll on Palestinian lives. He called for Palestinian militant groups to disarm and collaborate with the Palestinian Authority to achieve a national movement for a Palestinian state alongside Israel. This statement, according to The Times of Israel, marked Abbas as the first Arab party leader in Israel’s history to publicly call for the demilitarization of armed Palestinian factions and their cooperation with the Palestinian Authority to establish a Palestinian state through non-violent means.
In 2022, Abbas rejected claims of Israel being an “apartheid” state, highlighting the collaboration between Jews and Arabs in Israel to create positive outcomes.
