Part of a series on the |
Israelportal |
There have been Israeli Arab members of the Knesset ever since the first Knesset elections in 1949. The following is a list of the 100 past and present members. Some Israeli Druze dispute the label "Arab" and consider Druze to be a separate ethnic group. However, because they speak Arabic as their first language they are still included in this list.
Knesset member | Portrait | Party(s) | Knesset(s) | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Mansour Abbas | United Arab List | 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 | Sunni Muslim | |
Hamad Amar | Yisrael Beiteinu | 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25 | Druze | |
Youssef Atauna | Hadash | 20, 25 | ||
Yasir Hujeirat | United Arab List | 25 | ||
Waleed Alhwashla | United Arab List | 25 | ||
Iman Khatib-Yasin | United Arab List | 23, 24, 25 | Sunni Muslim | |
Ayman Odeh | Hadash | 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 | Non-religious (raised Sunni Muslim) | |
Waleed Taha | United Arab List | 22, 23, 24, 25 | ||
Ahmad Tibi | Ta'al | 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 | Sunni Muslim | |
Aida Touma-Suleiman | Hadash | 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25 |
The Arab citizens of Israel form Israel’s largest ethnic minority. They are mostly former Palestinian citizens who have continued to live in what became Israel, and their descendants. The majority of Arabs in Israel now prefer to be identified as Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Yisrael Beiteinu is a conservative political party in Israel, generally classified as far-right. The party's base was originally secular Russian-speaking immigrants, although support from that demographic is in decline. The party describes itself as "a national movement with the clear vision to follow in the bold path of Zev Jabotinsky", the founder of Revisionist Zionism. It has primarily represented immigrants from the former Soviet Union, although it has attempted to expand its appeal to the broader Jewish Israeli population.
Majalli Wahabi is a Druze-Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud, Kadima and HaTnuah between 2003 and 2013. He briefly assumed the position of Acting President due to the President of Israel Mr. Moshe Katsav's leave of absence as well as due to Interim and Acting President of Israel Mrs. Dalia Itzik's diplomatic trips abroad that took place during 2007; making him the first non-jew and the first Druze to be Israel's acting head of state; although assuming it for a mere few short periods during that year.
Salah Tarif is a Druze Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset between 1992 and 2006. When appointed Minister without Portfolio by Ariel Sharon in 2001, he became Israel's first non-Jewish government minister.
Ayoob Kara is an Israeli Druze politician. He has served as a member of the Knesset for Likud in four spells between 1999 and 2021, and as Minister of Communications.
Cooperation and Brotherhood was an Arab satellite list in Israel.
Cooperation and Development was a short-lived Arab satellite list in Israel.
The Israeli Druze Faction was a short-lived, one-man political faction in Israel.
Rameh is an Arab town in the Northern District of Israel. Located east of Nahf and Karmiel, in 2022 it had a population of 7,798. Over half of the inhabitants are Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox and Greek Catholic, over a third are Druze and the remainder are Muslims.
Said Nafa is an Israeli Arab politician and lawyer. A Druze citizen of Israel, he served as a member of the Knesset for Balad between 2007 and 2013.
Hamad Amar is an Israeli Druze politician who currently serves as a member of Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu since 2022, previously serving from 2009 to 2019 and again from 2019 to 2021. Amar also served as a Minister in the Finance Ministry from 2021 to 2022.
Sheikh Jabr Muadi was an Israeli Druze politician who served as a member of the Knesset for seven different parties between 1951 and 1981.
Israeli Druze or Druze Israelis are an ethnoreligious minority among the Arab citizens of Israel. They maintain Arabic language and culture as integral parts of their identity, and Arabic is their primary language. In 2019, there were 143,000 Druze people living within Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, comprising 1.6% of the total population of Israel. the majority of Israeli Druze are concentrated in northern Israel, especially in Galilee, Carmel and the Golan areas.
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People, informally known as the Nation-State Bill or the Nationality Bill, is an Israeli Basic Law that specifies the country's significance to the Jewish people. It was passed by the Knesset—with 62 in favour, 55 against, and two abstentions—on 19 July 2018 and is largely symbolic and declarative in nature. The law outlines a number of roles and responsibilities by which Israel is bound in order to fulfill the purpose of serving as the Jews' nation-state. However, it was met with sharp backlash internationally and has been characterized as racist and undemocratic by some critics. After it was passed, several groups in the Jewish diaspora expressed concern that it was actively violating Israel's self-defined legal status as a "Jewish and democratic state" in exchange for adopting an exclusively Jewish identity. The European Union stated that the Nation-State Bill had complicated the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, while the Arab League, the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Muslim World League condemned it as a manifestation of apartheid.
In Israel, Arabic is spoken natively by over 20 percent of the Israeli population, predominantly by Arab citizens of Israel, but also by Jews who arrived in Israel from Arab countries. Some refer to the modern Hebrew-influenced Levantine Arabic vernacular as the "Israeli Arabic dialect" or colloquially as Aravrit, a portmanteau of the Hebrew words Ivrit and Aravit.
Abdullah Abu Ma'aruf is an Israeli Druze doctor and politician. He served as a member of the Knesset for the Joint List between 2015 and 2017.
Gadeer Kamal-Mreeh is an Israeli Druze politician and journalist. She became the first Druze woman to anchor a Hebrew-language news program on Israeli television in 2017. In April 2019, she was elected to the Knesset as a member of the Blue and White alliance, making history as the first Druze woman to become a Member of the Knesset. She was subsequently elected to the Knesset as part of the Blue and White alliance in the September 2019 and March 2020 elections. She left Blue and White on 29 March 2020 and joined Yesh Atid. In June 2021, Kamal-Mreeh became the Jewish Agency's first Druze emissary to the US, based in Washington DC.
My parents are Muslims. They pray, they fast, they have been to Mecca, but they raised their children to think and feel as liberal, open-minded people.