Israel’s coalition government is threatened after a small Arab party announced it was freezing its participation in the coalition, following a recent conflict between the Israeli police and Muslims at a Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
Raam, the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli government, said it was suspending its involvement until further notice, after an emergency meeting by the leadership council of an Islamic movement that oversees the party.
The decision has no immediate impact on the government: The Israeli Parliament is on a recess until May 8, by which time Raam may have decided to rejoin the government. But if Raam makes its decision permanent within the next three weeks, it would give opposition lawmakers a 64-56 majority in the 120-seat Parliament — enough seats to vote to dissolve the body and send Israel to its fifth election in three years.
Clashes between Israeli police officers and Palestinian stone-throwers broke out during Friday morning prayers at the mosque compound, injuring more than 150 Palestinians and several officers; leading to more than 400 arrests; and prompting the police to storm the largest mosque within the complex, which contains several places of worship for both Muslims and Jews as the Jew observe Passover and Muslims are oberserving Ramadan.
Tensions escalated further on Sunday morning, when Israeli officers stopped Muslim worshipers from entering the Aqsa Mosque compound during a scheduled visit by Jewish worshipers and foreign tourists, who are permitted to enter each morning Sunday through Thursday. The unusual move led to brief clashes at the compound and in nearby side streets, in which at least 18 Palestinians were arrested, some of them for throwing stones at passing buses and for punching and kicking religious Jews in a nearby alley. At least 17 Palestinians were injured, five of them by rubber-tipped bullets fired by the police, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, an emergency medical group.
Raam’s move highlights the fraying tightrope that Naftali Bennett, the prime minister, must walk in order to keep his ideologically diverse coalition together. The coalition formed last June, with little uniting its eight right-wing, left-wing, centrist and Arab parties beyond a desire to avoid a fifth election and to prevent Benjamin Netanyahu, then the prime minister, from holding on to power.
The government began to teeter this month when a right-wing lawmaker, Idit Silman, quit the coalition, saying it did not adequately represent Zionist and Jewish values. Any concessions to Raam may prompt other right-wing coalition members to follow Ms. Silman into opposition.
The move by Raam follows several recent confrontations between the Israeli police and Muslims at the Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, a site sacred in both Islam and Judaism, and known to Jews as the Temple Mount. The tensions were deeply embarrassing to Raam; as a coalition member, it was seen by its supporters as being party to transgressions against a mosque considered the third-holiest site in Islam.
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