Under the campaign slogan "al-Aqsa is in danger," he has taken a leading role in warning that Israel is incrementally taking control of the most sensitive holy site in the conflict.
Last month it emerged that the Knesset is to vote on legislation to give Jewish religious extremists greater access to the mosque compound. Already large numbers of Jews, many of them settlers, regularly venture on to esplanade backed by armed Israeli police.
They include Jewish extremists that expressly want to blow up the al-Aqsa mosque so that a replica of a Jewish temple from 2,000 years ago can be built in its place.
Last week, Yehuda Glick, a leader of one of these extremist groups, was shot and wounded in Jerusalem. In response, Israel shut down al-Aqsa for the first time since the outbreak of the second intifada 14 years ago. Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, called it a "declaration of war."
According to the text of Lieberman's bill, the northern wing of the Islamic Movement "subverts the State of Israel's sovereignty while making cynical use of the institutions and fundamental values of the Jewish and democratic state."
It also blames the movement for "an eruption of violence and unrest among the Arab minority in Israel, while maintaining close relations with the terrorist organization Hamas."
Raising the thresholdThe attacks on Zoabi and the Islamic Movement come in the wake of legislation in March to raise the electoral threshold -- from 2 percent to 3.25 percent -- for a party to win representation in the Knesset.
The new threshold is widely seen as having been set to exclude the three Palestinian parties currently in the Knesset from representation. The minority's vote is split almost evenly between three political streams.
Zoabi's Balad party emphasizes the need for the Palestinian minority to build its own national institutions, especially in education and culture, to withstand the efforts of Israel's Zionist institutions to strip Palestinian citizens of their rights and erase their identity. Its chief demand has been for "a state for all its citizens" -- equal rights for Jewish and Palestinian citizens.
Balad's chief rival is the joint Jewish-Arab party of Hadash, whose Communist ideology puts a premium on a shared program of action between Jewish and Arab citizens. However, its Jewish supporters have shrunk to a tiny proportion of the party. It too campaigns for equal rights.
And the final party, Raam-Taal, is a coalition led by prominent Islamic politicians.
The three parties have between them 11 seats in the 120-member Knesset, with one held by a Jewish member of Knesset, Dov Chenin, for Hadash.
Abdel Fattah said his Balad party had been urging the other parties to create a coalition in time for the next general election to overcome the new threshold.
So far it has faced opposition from Hadash, which is worried that an alliance with Balad would damage its image as a joint Jewish-Arab party. A source in Hadash told Israeli daily Haaretz in late September: "Hadash is not an Arab party, and there's no reason it should unite with two Arab parties."
Abdel Fattah said Hadash's objections were unreasonable given that both Balad and the Islamic faction believed it was important to include Jewish candidates on a unified list. "Eventually they will have to come round to a joint list unless they want to commit political suicide," he remarked.
Falling turnoutBalad has been under threat at previous general elections. The Central Elections Committee, a body representing the major political parties, has repeatedly voted to ban it from running. Each time the decision has been overturned on appeal to the Supreme Court.
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