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Sorry for a vanity, but I can't find any articles with this information. Israel currently has ten Arab members of Knesset. (Their parliament) And I think they've had this many for a while. Most are Muslim, one is Druze, one is Christian, and some are indeterminate. Two of them are women. Muslim: Mansour Abbas Youssef Atauna [This one has two wives, which is against the law in Israel, but I guess he gets away with it.] Iman Khatib-Yasin (Woman) Ayman Odeh (Raised Musim, but secular) Ahmad Tibi Walid Taha Druze: Hamad Amar Christian: Aida Touma-Suleiman (Woman) I couldn't find the...

An enormous rally with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators called the 'Million March,' was held in front of the Knesset this evening (Thursday) in support of the government's planned judicial reforms. Over 1,000 buses are bringing citizens from all over the country to participate in the demonstration. Police said that crowds at the demonstration at first reached 200,000 people.Later, as more and more people arrived, and it was almost impossible to get through the crowds that poured in, filling all the streets around the Knesset,, the organizers estimated close to 600,000 people. Justice Minister Yariv Levin and Knesset Constitution Committee...

A protest and counter-protest held in Bnai Brak on Tuesday evening turned ugly after one person allegedly pepper spray at a police officer, and police used force in an attempt to disperse haredi protesters from the scene. On Monday, organizers of the anti-government protests against judicial reform announced that they would be demonstration outside the home of MK Moshe Gafni, a member of the United Torah Judaism party (UTJ). "The demonstration will be the opening salvo in a broad process against the involvement of haredi Knesset members in advancing laws to create a coup d'état, and we will first be...

In Israel, the legislature is not sovereign to legislate, and the executive lacks actual control to execute the instructions of the legislature. The judiciary has established itself as superior to all other branches of the government; intimating that it knows better what the country needs than the people and their elected representatives. Through almost five decades of Israel’s existence, the courts did not have the authority or the jurisdiction to invalidate a law of the Knesset. In 1995, Aharon Barak, President of the Supreme Court of Israel (1995-2006), decreed that “everything is justiciable,” everything can be done by judges; enabling...

The left-wing Labor and the center-left Yesh Atid parties are mulling mass resignations from the Knesset to protest passage of the government’s judicial reform plan, and in the hopes of disrupting the completion of the legislative process. Rumors circulated Monday evening, following the Knesset vote backing two key measures of the judicial reform plan, that the Yesh Atid party is currently considering terminating its own representation in the Knesset via a mass resignation. MK Elazar Stern (Yesh Atid) confirmed that the party is indeed weighing such an option. Speaking with Galei Tzahal Tuesday morning, Stern said Yesh Atid is considering...

Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to gather in Jerusalem Monday for a mass demonstration against the government’s judicial reform plan. The protest coincides with a vote by the Knesset on a linchpin bill of the judicial reform plan. The proposed legislation, which is expected to pass its first reading Monday, would increase the influence of the Knesset and government over the appointment of judges. Currently, just four of the nine members of the judicial selection committee are from the government and Knesset, with the remaining five members being judges and members of the Israel Bar Association. In addition,...

A leading Israeli rabbi, Meir Mazuz, said that openly gay Likud Party member Amir Ohana, the Speaker of the Knesset, is “infected with that disease,” according to Haaretz, a news outlet founded in Jerusalem in 1919. Mazuz also denounced Jerusalem’s Gay Pride parade, describing it as a “parade of beasts.” Rabbi Mazuz is a Sephardic Haredi rabbi in Jerusalem and dean of the Kisse Rahamin yeshiva, a traditional school of Jewish learning. […] The minister in charge of policing during the annual pilgrimage to Mount Meron in May 2021 was Amir Ohana, then the Minister of Public Security. During that...

Polticians from outgoing coalition say Likud chief's agreement to put Avi Maoz in charge of Israel's Jewish identity is a 'slap in the face,' could 'plunge Israel into the abyss' The prospect of a hardline, ultra-conservative, anti-pluralistic, homophobic nationalist being appointed as the next government's head of "Jewish identity" was met with staunch rebuke from politicians from the outgoing coalition on Sunday, with lawmakers slamming the move by prime minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu as "insanity," "racist" and "unreal". Avi Moaz, the single lawmaker of the fringe Noam party, is one of the Knesset's most far-right politicians, holding non-pluralist Jewish views and...

Meretz minister Esawi Frej says Labor leader Merav Michaeli’s ‘delusions of grandeur’ brought about the center-left’s electoral downfall Left-wing politicians were reacting with horror and dismay on Wednesday to the decisive electoral victory of the right-wing, religious bloc in the general election, expressing extreme concern in particular over the strong influence the far-right Religious Zionism party will likely wield in the next government. And recriminations among left-wing parties for their poor showing in the election had also begun, with Regional Cooperation Minister Esawi Frej of the Meretz party blaming the leader of the Labor party, Transportation Minister Merav Michaeli, for...

More on racist Ahmad Tibi, including anti-black and anti-Druze bigotry the (Arab-Islamic MK) 1999 "אתה דרוזי משתף פעולה; הנעל שלי נקייה יותר מהעדה שלך" - גלובס 29.04.1999 השוטר הדרוזי, הטוען שאחמד טיבי גידף ותקף אותו, העיד היום (ד') בבית המשפט המחוזי בירושלים. "אתה דרוזי משתף פעולה. הנעל שלי נקייה יותר מהעדה שלך" - כך תיאר השוטר הדרוזי על התקרית עם טיבי סמוך למחסום ישראלי באיזור רמאללה. לדברי השוטר, אחמד טיבי לא היה בכלי הרכב שנעצר לביקורת והוא הגיע למקום רק לאחר שהוא הוזעק למקום ע"י נהגו. השוטר ציין בעדותו, כי לאחר הגידופים הראשונים, תקף אותו טיבי במכת אגרוף ואף אמר...

Israel’s weakened coalition government announced Monday that it would dissolve parliament and call new elections, setting the stage for the possible return to power of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or another period of prolonged political gridlock. The election will be Israel's fifth in three years, and it will put the polarizing Netanyahu, who has been the opposition leader for the past year, back at the center of the political universe. “I think the winds have changed. I feel it,” Netanyahu declared. The previous four elections, focused on Netanyahu’s fitness to rule while facing a corruption investigation, ended in deadlock....

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) and Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar (New Hope) have requested that Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett remove his veto of an anti-Netanyahu bill, and allow them to attempt to pass it. The bill would prevent anyone charged with criminal offenses from serving as prime minister. A senior coalition official told Israel National News - Arutz Sheva that the bill could pass within a week, and that thanks to the Joint Arab List, there is a majority in the Knesset which supports it, even if Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked (Yamina) vetoes it. According to the report,...

If there was ever proof that Israel is not an apartheid state actively discriminating against its Arab minority, all one needs to do is look at the recent statement of Israeli Arab Knesset member Ayman Odeh. Not only does this reflect the reality that Israeli Arabs are equal parts of Israel’s democracy, that he can make statements that go against the interest and security of the state shows what a hyper-democracy Israel in fact is. As all this has unfolded, the thought I cannot shake is how much Israel’s Arabs deserve better. Odeh used the occasion of a recent Ramadan...

Nearly four years ago, the Knesset enacted the "Terrorist Salary Offset Law" to try and stop the PA's payments to security prisoners - despite the pressure - the payments did not stop - "The aid goes up in direct proportion to the number of Jews you killed," Alon Eviatar, an expert on the Palestinian arena, explained to N12. "The only element that determines how much everyone gets is your years in prison." Payments by the Palestinian Authority to terrorists who carried out terrorist attacks and are being held in Israeli prisons This is one of the main points of...

Like the New York Times with its roster of anti-Israel contributors, such as the anti-Israel post-Zionist Peter Beinart, the Washington Post favors op-ed contributors on Israel-Palestine who are very much on the side of the Palestinians. A recent example, featuring the Palestinian Mariam Barghouti, is reported on here: “Washington Post Publishes Op-Ed by Mariam Barghouti, Who Compared Israel to Nazi Germany,” by Rachel O’Donoghue, Algemeiner, April 1, 2022: It would appear that having a documented history that has included comparing Israel to Nazi Germany does not preclude one from offering their opinions on the editorial webpages of The Washington Post,...

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is suddenly the favorite to mount a comeback after current Prime Minister Naftali Bennett lost the majority he needs to hold his coalition together with a key defection on Wednesday. Israel’s government looked set to crumble Wednesday after coalition whip Idit Silman announced she is quitting to form a new government, causing the ruling coalition headed by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to lose its majority. … Silman, who is a member of Knesset in Bennett’s Yamina party, chose to defect after she clashed with Israel’s Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz over his order to hospitals...

From the words of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with reference to the political drama in the Knesset: On Passover we celebrate the Exodus of Israel from Egypt to the Land of Israel, the Promised Land. Today we are happy for a similar reason, and congratulate MK Idit Silman for making the right decision. We all receive her with a warm embrace and open arms. Idit returned home - to the right, to the national camp. There is a weak and limping government in Israel today. Its days are few. I hereby call on other members of the coalition whose...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Israeli lawmakers in an online speech via Zoom Sunday evening. Days after his address to the US Congress, Zelensky gave a speech online to Israeli Knesset Members and government ministers, emphasizing his Jewish heritage and the unity between Israel and Diaspora Jewish communities. Zelensky opened his address with a quote from Golda Meir, a native of Kyiv, and claimed that Ukrainians and Jews worldwide share a connection “in the past and the present.” “I don’t have to convince you that our peoples are connected, the Jews and the Ukrainians in the past and the present,...

The “Think Good” campaign to change online discourse, initiated by President Isaac Herzog and Meta (formerly Facebook) in Israel, went online on Tuesday morning. As part of the initiative, dozens of celebrities and public figures in Israel will share video clips of themselves reading the most hurtful responses that they have received online, with the offensive words censored and overlaid with words of positive reinforcement. The purpose of the initiative is to expose to millions of followers the difficulty of reading nasty replies, to encourage people to think twice before using hurtful language, and to think positive thoughts before hitting...

A right-wing MK sparred with the chairman of a pro-coalition Arab faction overnight, after the Knesset voted to back a controversial bill aimed at offering electricity hookups to illegal Bedouin homes. The Knesset voted 61 to 48 Monday night to back MK Waleed Taha's (United Arab List) so-called “Electricity Law” in its first of three readings. Following the Knesset vote, Religious Zionist Party chief MK Bezalel Smotrich demanded that the United Arab List, which drafted and lobbied for the bill’s passage, explicitly condemn the recent wave of Arab terrorist attacks in Israel. UAL chief MK Mahmoud Abbas walked out of...