MK Waleed Taha (Ra’am) on Tuesday called the government that Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to form a "dangerous government" for Arab society, but at the same time announced the intention of Ra’am to work with the government in order to preserve the achievements that it made in the outgoing government.
In an interview with Jacki Hugi on the Arabic-language Ashams Radio, Taha stressed that, in the current Knesset, Ra'am will not be part of the coalition or the opposition. “Ra'am has always said that it is not a member of any camp in the State of Israel. We said that we are not in anyone's pocket. We are not in the right's pocket, and we are not in the left's pocket. We are not in anyone's pocket."
He clarified his words by saying, "Just as we will not be a typical part of the coalition, we will not be a typical part of the opposition."
Taha noted that "there is an assessment that a very dangerous government will be established. It is very dangerous for the country in general, dangerous for Arab society and dangerous for the existence of the Palestinian Authority."
In this context, Taha stressed the importance of acting using extra-parliamentary tools to bring about the overthrow of the next government.
"The estimates are that this government will be bad on all levels. Therefore, it is clear that there is an obligation to ensure that the next government does not last long, and in order for it not to last long, you cannot only act against it according to the logic of the majority in the Knesset because it has a majority in the Knesset. It is clear that you have to use other tools to shake the confidence in the government, because this government is very dangerous for Arab society, Palestinian society and the entire region."
Taha also said, "It is clear that we will be against the conduct of this government, we will monitor it and try in every way to disrupt its activities."
At the same time, Taha did not rule out the possibility of talks with the next Netanyahu government in order to preserve Ra’am's achievements in the Bennett and Lapid government: "We will not tell Netanyahu that he can rely on us. We will not do this in a government in which Smotrich and Ben Gvir are members, we are saying that we want to keep the achievements that our society achieved last year."
Taha detailed the objectives of Ra'am vis-à-vis the next government: "We want to maintain the recognition of the unrecognized villages in the Negev that have been recognized. We want to keep the plan to fight crime that was approved by the previous government. We want to keep the five-year plan in the amount of more than 30 billion shekels. We want to maintain the 20-billion-shekel infrastructure program.”