Ra'am chairman MK Mansour Abbas said on Wednesday that the next term in the Knesset will be his last.
"On the first day I entered the Knesset, I came with an agenda to eradicate crime and violence in the Arab sector. It evolved into an agenda of influence and value-based civic partnership, and now an agenda of achieving peace and ending the conflict has been added to it," Abbas said in an interview with the Knesset Channel.
He added, "I have one more opportunity. I will probably run in the next elections and try to achieve the goals I’ve set for myself. I don’t think I need to continue being a Knesset member after that. It’s better to be on a mission—to come and try to do things—and then give others a chance."
Abbas’ Ra’am party was a member of the Bennett-Lapid government from 2021 to 2022, marking the first time in over 50 years that an Arab party joined a coalition.
In January, Abbas said that in his view, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government is "bad," but offered to provide it with a safety net if it works to return the hostages held by Hamas and end the war in Gaza.