Last update - 00:00 02/01/2007
Arab MKs: We'll torpedo budget if funds not given to Arab sector
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent
Members of Knesset Raleb Majadele and Nadia Hilou (Labor) on Tuesday threatened to vote against the state budget proposal if their demands are not met to transfer funds to the Arab sector.
The two MKs have demanded that $980 million of the funds allocated to developing the Galilee be transferred to Arab villages, and for hundreds of millions of shekels to be dedicated toward developing Arab communities in the Negev. They also asked the Education Ministry to build more classrooms for Arab students.
Majadele told Haaretz Tuesday that he had been in contact with the Finance Ministry over the matter for a number of weeks. He said his demands to allocate funds in an explicit matter to the Arab sector were included in the Labor Party's requests.
He said he was aware that the budget could pass even without his or Hilou's support. "Let it pass. But then this government will prove that it turned its back on the Arab public," he said. "We are a fifth of the citizens here, and we don't ask for anything we don't deserve."
"If our demands are not met we will go out to our constituency and declare that the government does not care about the Arab population," he added.