Israeli Lawmaker Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi Announces Return to Coalition

Israeli lawmaker Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi, from the left-wing Meretz party, announced on Sunday that she will resume her support of Israel’s ruling government coalition, days after she resigned from it.  Her announcement came after a meeting with alternate prime minister Yair Lapid who reportedly agreed to help the Arab sector.

She said in a statement that she will support the coalition: “Because I want to bring achievements to meet the needs of Arab society.” The government in the coalition now stand at an even 60-60 split in the Knesset.

Zoabi, an Arab Israeli, had written in her resignation letter submitted to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Thursday afternoon that she “cannot support a coalition that is disgracefully harassing the society I come from.” She said of the diverse government that she was a part of that: “Again and again, the heads of the coalition preferred to take harsh hawkish right-wing steps on key issues related to Arab society.” Among those issues, she said, are the Al Aqsa compound/Temple Mount, the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, new settlement construction, the Citizenship Law and house demolitions.

Zoabi, who did not inform the party’s leadership nor the leadership of the coalition, was appointed to serve as Israel’s next consul general in Shanghai.