In the past few days, head of the Muslim Ra’am party Mansour Abbas was trying to find a solution over rebel legislator Mazen Ghnaim who was no longer voting with the coalition. Abbas continued his attempts just until the very last moment, when Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Alternative Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced that they decided to disperse the current Knesset and call a new election. “We did our utmost to preserve this government,” said Bennett, undoubtedly referring also to the efforts of Abbas to keep his party members in line.

Evidently, Bennett and Lapid blame first and foremost Yamina rebel legislators for the forced decision. According to the rotation agreement, if the government falls because of Yamina members, Lapid will serve as interim prime minister during the transition period up until the new elections, and not Bennett. And indeed, this is what's happening now. Still, it is clear that Abbas regrets recent developments. In May, Abbas said unequivocally, “We won’t lend a hand for toppling the government or dispersing the Knesset.”

One question that leaves everyone wondering is what the Arab parties will do, now that it has been announced that the current Knesset will be dissolved next week.

On the one hand, there is Ra’am, which made history a year ago as the first Arab party to join a ruling coalition since the founding of the State of Israel. On the other hand, there is the Arab Joint List, which spent the last few months trying to bring the coalition down, if only to harm Abbas and put an end to Ra’am’s adventure in Israeli coalition politics.