Arab Knesset member ready for challenges of defense committee appointment

Meretz member Issawi Frej is expected to be appointed to the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the next few days. He will replace Meretz Chair Zehava Gal-On, who resigned from the Knesset Oct. 22. Frej will be the third Arab Knesset member to serve on the prestigious committee. He is preceded by Taleb al-Sana of the Arab Democratic Party (Taal), who served in 2006, and Hashem Mahameed of the United Arab List (Ra'am), who served during the 15th Knesset, 1999-2003.

When Sana's appointment was approved in April 2006, he said, "Until now, we've been disqualified for racist reasons. This time, they ran out of excuses. It's important for them to hear other opinions, and we have [something] to say on this important committee." Sana lasted only a few weeks on the committee, resigning after the committee's chairman, Minister Yuval Steinitz, arranged to exclude him from discussions on sensitive topics.

"They turned the committee's discussions around so that they focused on procedural issues, while the main discussions were moved to subcommittees, where I was not a member," Sana told Al-Monitor. "There was no content involved with my membership, and I realized that it was ineffective."

Sana said that the committee cast aspersions on his loyalty to Israel, and he felt like a pariah, until he decided to resign. Perhaps it was because of this that after the 2015 elections, Joint List Chairman Ayman Odeh requested positions for his party on other committees instead, even though his party was the third largest in the Knesset.