der mentsh trakht un Got lakht. In the 11 th hour, Yair Lapid, the leader of the aptly named “change government” declared to President Rueven Rivlin that he had succeeded in forming a government. Time will tell if he is correct. Lapid is stitching together unlike parts. He’ll need exactly the right amount of electricity to bring them to life. Mansour Abbas is Israel’s most interesting dentist. For decades, Arab and Jewish political parties have lived in separate realities. Arab parties have rejected partaking in and normalizing a system they believe oppresses Arab and Palestinian voices. Jewish parties have had little interest in dialogue with Arab nationalists whom they view as existentially threatening to Israel’s Jewish identity. The impasse seemed unbridgeable. Luckily, Abbas is used to pulling teeth. His Ra’am party has left behind traditional divides, advocating for the interests of Arab-Israeli society as opposed to larger questions of Palestinian nationalism. Ra’am entered the Knesset on a platform of fixing infrastructure, tackling organized crime, and legalizing unrecognized Bedouin villages. If the change government is formed, Ra’am will be the first Arab party in the history of Israel to join a ruling coalition.