Head of the Ra’am party Mansour Abbas addressed Israelis, in a "state-of-the-nation" like speech, on April 1.

It was not a dramatic declaration of war nor a historic announcement of peace. Nonetheless, it was probably one of the greatest political TV moments in modern Israeli history. The person facing the cameras in a live broadcast aired in primetime on all major TV channels was not a prime minister, a defense minister or military chief — he was a politician, rather anonymous until recent months, who heads Israel’s Arab Islamist party.

Speaking in Hebrew, Abbas addressed first and foremost the Jewish electorate, which up to that moment regarded him as a cross between a Hamas terrorist and a clone of reviled Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His party Ra’am had sent shockwaves through Israeli politics by garnering sufficient votes in the March 23 elections to command four Knesset seats. With his April 1 speech, Abbas again made history.

Since announcing several months ago that he would not rule out membership in a coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Abbas has stirred up a hornet nest. Ahead of the elections, Abbas split from the Arab Joint List with which Ra’am had run previously and which continues to view Netanyahu as the devil incarnate. He mobilizes sufficient votes to cross the 3.25% Knesset electoral threshold, crushing the Joint List in the process and sending it plunging from 15 seats to six.