Last update - 00:00 17/12/2006
First woman appointed to Higher Arab Monitoring Committee
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
The Hadash Party has appointed a woman to represent it in the the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, it was revealed Sunday, becoming the first Arab party to send a woman to the body.
Aida Tuma-Suleiman, a senior member of the party, will replace Hadash Secretary Iman Ouda, who announced his resignation from the position.
"It is a disgrace that there has never been a woman in the committee, and we decided to put this to an end," Ouda told Haaretz.
Hadash members, led by Tuma, had demanded for several years that a woman be included in the committee.
One of the suggestions they offered was that each party send two representatives to the committee secretariat so that women would not replace the current delegates, but serve alongside them.
Due to ongoing reforms within the committee, however, the changes were never carried out.
Hadash said Sunday that Tuma's entry into the committee reflects its emphasis on the rights of women to equal opportunities.
Tuma called for other parties to follow the example of Hadash and appoint women as representatives.
"Women need to be represented in all bodies within the Arab public, and in all national authorities," Tuma said.
Since Israel's founding, Arab parties have not sent any women as representatives to the Knesset or to the monitoring committee.
Only Zionist parties - Labor and Meretz - have sent Arab women to the Knesset in the past.
However, eight women were among the authors of a paper presented this month by the committee, entitled "The vision for the future of Palestinian Arabs in Israel," including the project coordinator, Jaida Rinawi-Zuabi.
Women's issues also featured prominently in the document itself.