Last update - 01:25 29/01/2007
Cabinet makes history by approving appointment of first Muslim Arab minister
By Gideon Alon, Jack Khoury and Nir Hasson
For the first time in the country's history, the cabinet will include a Muslim Arab, following the near-unanimous approval yesterday by the current ministers to welcome MK Ghaleb Majadele (Labor) into their ranks.
Minister for Strategic Affairs Avigdor Lieberman (Yisrael Beiteinu) was the only dissenting vote. The appointment will be put to a Knesset vote today. The three Arab parties represented in the Knesset will vote against the appointment on the grounds that it is designed to serve partisan interests and will not contribute to their struggle for equality.
Lieberman said he had no objection to an Arab cabinet minister but voted against Majadele's appointment "because I don't think I have to help Amir Peretz in his Labor Party primary battles." Lieberman denied accusations that his nay vote reflected racist opinions.
Minister Eitan Cabel welcomed the appointment. "I am proud that the first Arab minister comes from the ranks of Labor," Cabel said.
Majadele will be a minister without portfolio. He has not yet been assigned any specific areas of concern. He wants to assume responsibility for culture, science and sport, which MK Ophir Pines-Paz handled before he quit the cabinet.
"I have a good feeling, the Arab population is being given a sense of cooperation," Majadele said after the cabinet vote. "I will prove that I am suitable for any position. I want to loyally serve 20 percent of the country's residents."
Majadele has served in the Knesset since 2004. He is currently the chair of the Knesset Internal Affairs and Environment Committee.
As an MK, Majadele has been very critical of the current government. In an interview to Haaretz, he said that Israeli Arabs still face discrimination in many areas of life.
He said he fears that if the discrimination does not stop there will be a repetition in October 2010 of the violence of October 2000, but on a much greater scale. "What is the state doing to make the Arab public feel that it has equal rights?" Majadele asked, "if 50 percent of Arab schoolchildren are living below the poverty line, and the communities with the highest rates of unemployment are the Arab ones?"
Hadash Chairman, MK Mohammed Barakeh, said that "Majadele joined the government in order to sit next to Lieberman instead of Pines-Paz, who resigned to protest against the inclusion of Lieberman and his racist views, and that is a truth that speaks for itself. Majadele will represent his party. His appointment is aimed at serving the personal and partisan interests of [Labor Party Chair and Defense Minister] Amir Peretz," Barakeh said.
Balad Party officials said that Majadele's appointment would not promote Arab equality. "His entry into the cabinet is contrary to the interests of Israeli Arabs and harms the struggle against racism. The appointment of an Arab minister will not change the discrimination and will only give legitimacy - a seal of approval - to Lieberman's racist attitudes," the officials said.
Meanwhile, a former informer for the Shin Bet is trying to stop Majadele's ministerial appointment on the grounds that he participated in demonstrations against settling informers in the Galilee village of Umm al-Kutuf. Hamid Arqat, a former informer who was charged with killing village resident Fahmi Kahaba during one of these demonstrations, in December 2005, sent a letter to Olmert via his attorney, asking the prime minister to reconsider Majadele's appointment.
He wrote that Majadele was one of the leaders of the demonstration, during which hundreds of villagers protested against the placement of former informers and their families in Umm al-Kutuf.
Majadele said Arqat's claims are not even worthy of a response and that he was present at the events only as chair of the Knesset Interior Committee, in an attempt to calm the situation.