“The age of the boycott by Arab Knesset members is over," Ronen Tzur, senior adviser to Defense Minister Benny Gantz, tweeted Dec. 21. "The next government will include them regardless of whether it is formed by the right or the left. This historic achievement can be attributed to one man: [Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu.”

The Knesset's failure to pass a budget or proposed legislation to extend the budget debates beyond their deadline meant that the Israeli parliament was dissolved and that new elections were called.

Tzur was referring to the absence of the Ra’am parliamentary faction from the Knesset plenum at the time of the crucial vote. Ra’am is one of the four factions composing the Joint List, which worked with other opposition parties for the current Knesset to be dissolved and new elections announced. This mission was accomplished, no thanks to Ra’am legislators, including faction leader Mansour Abbas.

This was not the first time that Ra’am legislators refused to vote to dissolve the Knesset. They did the same in early June due over talks between Ra’am and the Likud. In the ensuing tension with the other parties that make up the Joint List, Knesset members from Ra’am announced, “We are in no one’s pocket.”