Israel names first Arab minister
Labor Party chairman Amir Peretz has appointed Knesset member Ghaleb Majadleh as Israel’s first Arab Muslim minister on Wednesday, Jan. 10, replacing Ophir Pines-Paz as Science, Culture and Sport Minister.
Peretz called the move a historic step to improve Arab-Jewish relations. But Peretz’s critics said the decision was a desperate attempt to save his struggling re-election campaign ahead of the May 28 Labor leadership race. Majadleh, who endorsed Shimon Peres in the last race, heads the party’s Arab sector, Labor’s second largest.
“The dirty deal of Peretz and Majadleh is a new record in cynicism and insulting the intelligence of Israeli voters,” Pines-Paz said. “It proves how low the party has fallen.”
Majadleh called his appointment “an important precedent-setting step toward integrating the million Arabs in this country. Many have talked about equality but Amir Peretz is the first to really take a step to bring it about.” — jps
Poll shows Barak ahead in Labor race
Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak has become the top candidate for the Labor leadership, according to a survey published in Ma’ariv this week.
The poll, published Wednesday, Jan. 10 — only three days after Barak first declared his candidacy for party chairman — showed the former prime minister leading the Labor race with 30 percent of voters on his side. Opponents Ami Ayalon, Ophir Paz-Pines and current chairman Amir Peretz came in with 23 percent, 18 percent and 12 percent respectively.
If he wins, he will replace incumbent Amir Peretz as Labor chief. Presumably a victory also will mean that the former prime minister and military general also will replace Peretz as defense minister under the coalition government assembled by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s Kadima Party.
The Labor election is scheduled for May 28. — jta
Hamas leader admits Israel ‘a reality’
Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said this week that he will not recognize Israel’s existence until there is a Palestinian state.
However, he told Reuters, Israel is a “reality” and “there will remain a state called Israel, this is a matter of fact. The problem is not that there is an entity called Israel. The problem is that the Palestinian state is nonexistent.”
Mashaal reiterated Hamas’ demands for the creation of a Palestinian state that includes Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem and that Israel accept the right of Palestinian refugees to return to homes lost in the 1967 war and before. — jta
Settlements growing faster than inside Israel
Population growth in Jewish settlements in the West Bank has dramatically outpaced that inside Israel. According to figures released this week by the Interior Ministry, the growth rate in settlements is almost three times greater than in cities and towns inside Israel’s “Green Line.”
The population inside the Green Line increased by 1.8 percent from 2005 to 2006, but the population of settlements grew by 5.2 percent, from nearly 254,000 to about 267,000. Settler leaders said the numbers proved the popularity of their communities.
Left-wing activists countered that the rise was due mainly to a jump in the number of fervently religious Jews moving to the West Bank for cheaper housing. — jta
Wolf Prize winners announced
A researcher at U.C. San Diego has won a prestigious Israeli Wolf Prize. The 2007 chemistry award will go to George Feher of U.C. San Diego and Ada Yonath of Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science for structural discoveries in their studies of photosynthesis.
The art prize will be given to Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto “for his ever-inventive career as an artist, educator and activist, whose restless intelligence has created prescient forms of art that contribute to fresh understanding of the world,” the Wolf Foundation said. The $100,000 prizes will be presented at a Knesset ceremony May 13. — jta
Shalit could be held ‘for years’ to come
A Palestinian group holding an Israeli soldier said he was healthy but could be held for years.
The comments from the Popular Resistance Committee, one of the three groups who helped seize Cpl. Gilad Shalit, were the first public comments about his health.
“Gilad Shalit is in good health and is being treated according to Islamic standards of dealing with prisoners of war,” said Abu Mujahid, a spokesman for the group. “We are prepared to keep him for years, if our demands are not met.”
The PRC is demanding that Israel release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. — jta
14 percent of suicide bombers Israeli
Thirty-eight out of 272 suicide bombings in Israel were carried out by Palestinians who had obtained Israeli citizenship through family unification, the Shin Bet security service said. — jta
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California