Ra’am party chairman Mansour Abbas was in Jordan April 28 for a meeting in the palace with King Abdullah II. Abbas had been invited to attend a Ramadan Iftar diner, but once the meal was over, he and the king discussed the implications of clashes between worshippers and Israeli security forces in the al-Aqsa mosque compound. Abbas was the first Israeli political figure to meet with the king since the beginning of the current tensions on Temple Mount.

In Israel, every meeting with the Jordanian king scores positive political points, especially with Israeli Arabs. That makes it clear why Prime Minister Naftali Bennett approved the trip. Bennett’s future, and the future of the coalition, depends on Abbas. Thus, a meeting in the palace, which benefits the Ra’am leader, has internal political implications in Israel.

When the Knesset returns from its spring recess May 9, the coalition will face a major fight for survival. It lost its slender majority April 6, when Knesset Member Idit Silman of Yamina resigned.

Topping this coalition disaster was the April 17 decision by Ra’am’s religious leadership, the Shura Council, to provisionally freeze all party activities in the coalition, to protest Israeli aggression on the Temple Mount. It later emerged that the decision was coordinated between Abbas and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid. This unprecedented formula allowed the party to alleviate some of the public pressure it was facing in the wake of events on the Temple Mount.