ARAB PARTY REJOINS ISRAEL GOVERNMENT

Israel’s teetering governing coalition was granted at least a temporary reprieve from its latest crisis Wednesday when one of its partners, a small Islamist party, agreed to rejoin the coalition.

The Islamist party, Ra’am, had suspended its involvement a month ago in protest of police actions at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The reversal highlighted the fragility of the eight-way coalition, which yokes together politicians who would normally be bitter ideological opponents, and Ra’am’s pivotal but imperiled position.

It came in the first week of a new parliamentary session in which opposition parties had been counting on Ra’am’s support or acquiescence to dissolve parliament and force an early general election, Israel’s fifth in less than four years.

But the party’s leader, Mansour Abbas, disappointed them, saying it was better for Israel’s Arab citizens if his party remained in the government.

“We are leading a political process of cooperation that is meant to provide an answer or a solution for the Arab citizens of Israel,” Abbas told reporters in the parliament building Wednesday. “Ra’am has taken the initiative to take responsibility and to advance this process.”