Following disagreements between Mansour Abbas’ party and Bennett’s coalition in recent weeks, the main obstacle has been resolved and Ra’am will support the budget in the November plenum vote. Kan 11 News reported Saturday night. The obstacle was the provision of budgets to the Arab municipalities at the expense of the Jewish municipalities.
A senior Ra’am source told Kan 11: “The main obstacle to our vote on the budget has been resolved, and there is significant progress with the Interior Ministry and Ayelet Shaked.”
The Shaked reference has to do with this government’s policy regarding family reunification – awarding legal status to PA Arabs who marry Israeli Arab spouses.
The same senior Ra’am source said that “budgets will not be diverted from the Jewish to the Arab municipalities, but will be obtained from an external budget obtained by the party.” He insisted that “we are against the transfer of budgets from poor to poorer municipalities, but want everyone will receive equal budgets.”
Yes, well, that’s not how carving a cake works. In the end, someone in the Jewish sector will have to receive less to benefit someone in the Arab sector.
Speaking of which, on Sunday, the Ra’am Electricity Bill will go to a vote in the Ministerial Committee on Legislative Affairs, connecting illegally constructed Arab communities to the national power grid. The bill has been a source of embarrassment to the coalition and is expected to be approved by the committee, virtually guaranteeing its passing.
In early October, Ra’am announced that among its conditions to support the budget were an outline for regulating planning and construction in the Arab localities, an outline for regulating illegal Arab enclaves in the Negev, regulating the status of about 2,000 PA-Israeli Arab families, and connecting all the households in the Arab sector, legal and illegal alike, to the national power grid.