By one vote, with a majority of 60 to 59, Israel's new government was approved and Yamina leader Naftali Bennett sworn in as the 13th prime minister of Israel. The rotation government headed by Yamina and Yesh Atid that has been negotiated for the past month was finally authorized and put an end to former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12 years in power. From today, we can say “Prime Minister Bennett” and “leader of the opposition Netanyahu.” And if that’s not enough, a mere hour after the new government was sworn in, US President Joe Biden called Bennett to congratulate him on entering office. Everyone remembers that Netanyahu had to wait nearly a month before he received a call from the American president after his inauguration in January. 

But with due respect to the change in government in Israel, real history was made last night at the Knesset chamber with the entrance of an Arab party — Ra’am — into the coalition for the first time, and its participation in shaping the face of the government in Israel. After a long journey of delegitimization of the Arab voice and exclusion of the Arab public, Knesset member Mansour Abbas, with his colleagues of the Ra’am list, changed the rules of the game.

We could say much of it was due to Netanyahu’s investment in legitimizing Abbas, in the hope that he could form a government with him, a move that came back to haunt him and only helped his rivals in the "change camp" to form a government. The coalition agreement signed with Ra’am took on historic significance, for the Arab community in particular and for Israeli society as a whole, since it is a precedential move for an Arab party to participate in the political game in Israel officially and fully, not indirectly or under the table. 

Anyone who thought the swearing-in of the new government would pass without drama was wrong. According to various reports in recent days, Knesset member Said al-Harumi, the Ra'am representative of the Negev region, had threatened not to support the creation of the government because of the issue of home demolitions in the Bedouin community in the Negev Desert. Reportedly, he believed this issue was not adequately addressed in the coalition negotiations. In the end, he abstained from the vote and did not support the government with his colleagues in the party. Among the Arab Joint List party, all six representatives opposed the new government.  However, the Taal Party, which is part of the Joint List, and its leader Ayman Odeh waited to see that the government had a majority before they entered the Knesset chamber and voted against it.