Israel’s News Blog Magazine: Daily Stories Video and PhotosIn Israel, Arab women find empowerment in Zionist parties
Zohir Andreus, the editor of the Israeli Arab newspaper Kol el-Arab (The Arab Voice), wrote a fascinating op-ed piece that was published today on the Ynet site.
It seems that none of the Arab-Israeli political parties has seen fit to put a woman in a realistic slot on their list. This, despite the facts that there are several very worthwhile candidates and that the Israeli Arab women tend to be highly educated. In fact, it was the leftist Zionist party Meretz that put the first Arab woman on its list in 1999. And now Labour has put an Arab woman in a realistic place on its list, too.
How can we explain to ourselves that, once again, it took a Zionist party to grant Arab women equality, whereas we continue to ignore them?
The Arab parties have declared non-entities two elements that threaten them, and they threaten to leave them out of the Knesset altogether: the low voter turnout in the Arab community, and the penetration of Zionist parties into Arab communities.
Read the whole article here.
Hat tip: Yael.
