The cabinet approved on Sunday the appointment of Israel's first Arab cabinet minister when it voted by a large majority to name Labor MK Ghaleb Majadle as MK Ophir Paz-Pines's replacement.
The decision to bring the appointment to a vote came after weeks of negotiation by MK Eitan Cabel (Labor), the minister in charge of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, who agreed that for now, Majadle would be a minister-without-portfolio, rather than becoming minister of arts, culture and sports as planned.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that within two weeks, Majadle would be assigned a portfolio.
MK Nadia Hilu (Labor) expressed on Sunday her satisfaction with the appointment of fellow Labor MK Majadle to the cabinet.
"Today, a step forward was made in the integration and equality of the Arab population," Hilu said. "We only hope that in two weeks, the prime minister's promise will become an actuality."
"Majadle is a talented minister who deserves to have a portfolio," Hilu added.
The first scheduled cabinet vote on Majadle's appointment was postponed due to political sparring between Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, as well as within the Labor Party.
Olmert complained that Peretz had decided on the appointment without consulting him and that he informed the press of the decision before the Prime Minister's Office. Olmert told Kadima ministers that he had unsuccessfully tried to reach Peretz.
Peretz's associates countered the allegations by accusing Olmert of delaying the appointment out of a combination of racism and a desire to help former prime minister Ehud Barak unseat Peretz, and threatened to deliver an itemized list of phone calls from Peretz's office to prove that the Prime Minister's Office was contacted before the press.
'The addition of an Arab [to the cabinet] is a significant act whose time has come,' Olmert told Kadima ministers. 'But the move must be made while looking at the big picture of vacancies in the cabinet and the demands of Labor and Israel Beiteinu.'
Sources close to Olmert said he warned Peretz that if Majadle filled the vacancy in the Science, Culture and Sport Ministry, it would mean that Labor had abandoned its claim to the vacant Social Affairs portfolio.
On January 11, Israel Beitenu MK Estherina Tartman described the promotion of an Israeli Arab to the cabinet as an 'affliction,' prompting the State Attorney to investigate whether her remarks were a criminal violation.
In a letter to Attorney Eran Hermoni, chairman of the Labor Party Young Guard, Mazuz's assistant, Eyal Yinon, wrote that 'we would like to point out that on the criminal level, MK Tartman's words are being examined by the head of the Special Tasks Division in the State Attorney's Office [Attorney Shai Nitzan].'
Also in the cabinet meeting, Olmert, in a thinly veiled reference to Iran, said that Israel would "not allow the world" to be indifferent to calls for the Jewish people's destruction.
Olmert spoke after the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution condemning the denial of the Holocaust.
The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has called the Holocaust a "myth" and has repeatedly preached the destruction of the Jewish state.
"We will not allow the world to once again sink into indifference, heedlessness and silence, thereby giving moral approval to speak in such terms about the existence of the Jewish people," Olmert told members of his cabinet on Sunday, without mentioning Iran by name
Jerusalem Post
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