Foreign Minister Yair Lapid has appointed Knesset member Ghaida Rinawie Zoabi of Meretz as Israel’s new consul general to Shanghai in a milestone for women. Zoabi will be the first Arab woman to be appointed to one of Israel’s top diplomatic posts.

Zoabi thanked Lapid, saying, “It is an enormous privilege to be the first Arab woman to serve in such a senior diplomatic position. I am glad to have a chance to contribute to the important mission of promoting economic, commercial and cultural cooperation with one of Israel’s most important partners anywhere, from the consulate general in Shanghai, one of the major nerve centers of the global economy.”

This should be a happy occasion for Israeli democracy, elevating a Muslim Arab woman who never hid her reservations about defining Israel as a Jewish state. But the appointment immediately came under attack from the right, including within the coalition itself.

The criticism initially attributed the appointment to cynical political reasons: keeping Zoabi out of the Knesset. She was deemed too independent-minded after having embarrassed the coalition by voting Jan. 17 against the Conscription Act, breaking coalition discipline. “In protest, I voted today with my conscience, for Arab society and against bills that the government wanted to promote,” Zoabi said. Her own party was furious and the leaders of the coalition were presented with a problem.