Raja Zaatry is a friend of mine on Facebook. I couldn’t remember who he was and never saw any of his posts until I came across his name in connection with his controversial appointment as deputy mayor of the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Haifa (under a power-sharing agreement, he will only take office in 2021). The storm even led Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri to oppose the nomination.

Zaatry, an Arab citizen of Israel and head of the pro-Communist Arab-Jewish Hadash Party branch in Haifa, made headlines in recent days after politicians on the right accused him of supporting terrorism. Deri is trying to prevent Zaatry from taking office by virtue of his authority as minister of interior, and Knesset coalition whip David Amsalem tabled a proposed bill to thwart the appointment. Within two days, over 7,100 people had signed an online petition calling to revoke Zaatry’s appointment.

Haifa’s newly elected mayor, Einat Kalisch Rotem, has not given in to pressure to rescind the appointment, pressure that included a call from Netanyahu trying to dissuade her from going ahead with the controversial move. She will now have to contend with Deri’s attempts to depose her putative (future) deputy, which include hints of budget cutbacks and pay cuts to the unwanted deputy.

It all started on Dec. 8 when Zaatry refused to grant a live studio interview to the Ynet news site after journalist Attila Somfalvi accused him of disrespecting the symbols of the state because he wants people "to talk about him." In a lengthy Facebook post later that day, the journalist claimed Zaatry had compared Israel to Hezbollah.