Druze TV news anchor set to become member of Israeli parliament
daliyat al karmel (israel) — With Israel’s election just over a month away, a Druze former television news anchor is poised to become the first woman from her Arabic-speaking minority to serve in the Israeli parliament.
Gadeer Mreeh, who is running for the centrist Blue and White party led by former armed forces chief Benny Gantz, is all but guaranteed a seat in the Knesset in an election system where voters choose from a list of candidates. Gantz is the main opponent of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mreeh, a former anchor with Israel’s public broadcaster, said her life has been a series of firsts for minority women in the country.
“I was the first non-Jewish woman to anchor a Hebrew-language news
broadcast,” Mreeh, 34, said from her village of Daliyat Al Karmel.
Rising through the ranks of Israeli media wasn’t easy, Mreeh said, citing among other factors criticism from some in her conservative community who see journalistic work as unsuitable for women.
“I remember one day a religious (community) member approached
my parents and said it is not appropriate to work in this field as a Druze woman,” Mreeh said, while preparing malfouf, a stuffed cabbage dish common in Arab cuisine.
Over time, Mreeh won support from Druze elders, including its spiritual leader in Israel, Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif.
“Now even the religious leaders understand that Druze women can succeed, that we can represent, in a modest and noble way,” Mreeh said.
More than 140,000 Druze live in Israel, making up just under two per cent of the population.
In Israel, Druze men are drafted into the military, unlike members of the country’s Arab community, many of whom identify as Palestinian. In the outgoing parliament, 16 of its 120 members were Arab, including two non-Druze women.
Last year minority communities were dismayed by Israel’s approval of a “nation-state” law, which declares that only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country and downgrades Arabic as an official language on a par with Hebrew.