Netanyahu’s fans hail historic speech by Israeli Arab legislator
Likud’s enthusiasm over the speech of Arab legislator Mansour Abbas might be opportunist and not candid, but it is changing Israeli politics and society irreversibly.
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.
