Yoav Segalovitz isn’t your typical Islamist party politician. For starters, he’s not even Muslim.
In the run‑up to Israel’s general election on Oct. 27, Mr. Segalovitz, a former senior police commander and opposition lawmaker, joined the conservative Arab Muslim party Ra’am as the second candidate on the party list – an unprecedented move for a Jewish politician. His aim, he tells The Christian Science Monitor, is to form “a bridgehead” between the two societies at a time when Jewish‑Palestinian dialogue and cooperation is at rock bottom.
Mr. Segalovitz says he also hopes “to break the paradigm” that has long stigmatised Arab inclusion in national government.
Led by Mansour Abbas, the Ra’am party has pushed for greater participation in Israeli politics and made history by joining a short‑lived Israeli government coalition in 2021. Bringing Mr. Segalovitz on board has turned many heads across the country.
“Every generation has a moment in which fear and hope stand in the same room,” Dr. Abbas said at a press conference announcing the merger on Aug. 31. “In this room this evening, hope has prevailed.”
The two men make unlikely allies. Mr. Segalovitz is a Jewish, liberal Zionist and former police officer from the small central‑Israel town of Kadima‑Zoran. He says he believes that “God and politics don’t go together.”
Dr. Abbas is a devout Muslim dentist from the Galilee region in the north of the country. He self‑identifies as a Palestinian citizen of Israel and heads a socially conservative political party with ideological roots in conservative Islam.
“We don’t have to agree on everything, but certainly we don’t have to argue about everything,” says Mr. Segalovitz, who sports the close‑cropped haircut of someone who spent his career in law enforcement. He also speaks with a calm, deliberate tone that’s rare among Israeli politicians. “I am largely putting narratives and identities aside to address things central to being an Israeli citizen,” he says.