Arab women push to the fore in Israel local vote
FROM billboards across Nazareth shines the discreet smile of Hanin Zuabi, a controversial Arab woman MP, who is hoping voters will choose her as mayor of Israel’s largest Arab city.
This 44-year-old former maths teacher, her black hair cut into a sleek bob, is the only woman running for leadership of the sprawling northern city revered by Christians as Jesus’ childhood home. Zuabi is just one of a growing number of women from Israel’s Arab minority vying for office in elections across 191 municipalities.
“Running for mayor sends an important message saying that Palestinian women are entering local politics and putting themselves on the political map,” she told AFP during campaigning. Israel’s Arab minority has its roots in the 160,000 Palestinians who stayed on their land after the creation of Israel in 1948. Today, they number more than 1.3 million, and often refer to themselves as ‘48 Palestinians.
“Nazareth needs to have international status,” she says, flagging one of the main elements of her platform.
Known as capital of the northern Galilee region, Nazareth has a population of 82,000, 65 percent of which is Muslim and the rest Christian. Posters and banners are plastered on the city’s walls, windows and balconies, each declaring the merits of a particular candidate or list.
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