JTA – created by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett time magazine list Mansoor Abbas, one of the world’s 100 most influential people, and his Arab-Israeli coalition partner, thinks he knows why.
“It all comes down to courage,” writes Abbas, the leader of the first Arab party to join an Israeli regime coalition. together in obscurity Explaining why his political opponent was recognized in the list published on Wednesday.
“After four elections in two years, a bold act was needed to unite the country battling political stalemate and bring it to a hopeless standstill. Something dramatic needs to change, but more importantly, it takes someone courageous to make that change. “
Abbas and Bennett agree a bit ideologically. Abbas heads the United Arab List, a party that champions Palestinian self-determination, while Bennett hails from Israel’s right-wing and has pledged that a Palestinian state will not arise under his watch. But they converged around the goal of removing Bennett’s predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he saw as divisive and corrupt.
Arab parties have previously been part of coalition talks, and supported an outside coalition government for a period in the 1990s. But, notes Abbas, those talks were always held behind closed doors.
“I don’t do things in the dark,” Abbas quoted Bennett as saying when Bennett surprised him by opening his coalition talks to the media.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett leads a cabinet meeting at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem on September 12, 2021. (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash 90)
Bennett is under Time’s “leader” category. Other Jewish figures in that category are Rochelle Valensky, director of the US Centers for Disease Control who has become a public figure during the coronavirus pandemic, and Ron Klein, President Joe Biden’s chief of staff. Julie Gerberding, who served as President George W. Bush as CDC director, wrote the Valensky assessment, and Hillary Clinton wrote the Klein assessment.
The “performer” category includes actress Scarlett Johansson, rated by actress Jamie Lee Curtis, who says that seeing Johansson play her mother, Janet Leigh, in a film about “Psycho” director Alfred Hitchcock, she was in a moment’s eye. Forgot that she was watching the show. Curtis, like Johansson, is the product of a marriage that has Jewish and Danish roots.
Scarlett Johansson arrives at the Oscars at the Dolby Theater on Sunday, February 9, 2020 in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Also on Time’s list, in the “icons” category, are brother and sister Palestinian activists Muna and Mohamed al-Kurd, who focused international attention this spring on their decades-long efforts to oust Palestinians living in East Jerusalem.
Biden also made the list, and his explanation was written by Bernie Sanders, the Jewish Vermont senator who is the de facto leader of the Progressives. Sanders emerged as Biden’s most serious opponent in last year’s Democratic presidential primary.
“Joe Biden and I have strong disagreements, but it must be acknowledged that he is the first president in a very long time trying to address the fundamental crises facing our country,” Sanders said of the pandemic and its fallout. Referring to. The growth of the economy, racial tensions, climate change and the authoritarian right.