Roundup of the twenty third Knesset elections

The just elected twenty third Knesset has some remarkable features:

- four Druze MKs will be sworn in on March 16, which means a high degree of overrepresentation of the Druze community (barley 1.6 per cent of the total population according to official numbers). The Druze members will be:
  • Fateen (Fatin) Mulla from Yarka for the Likud. He had been elected before in 2019 and seems the be the new "Druze No.1 representative" of the Likud instead of former minister Ayoob Kara.
  • Gadeer Mreeh (Ghadir Mrih) from Daliyat al-Karmal for Blue and White. The the my knowledge first female Druze parliamentarian in the Middle East ever had also been elected before in 2019. It's worth mentioning that her candidacy was not opposed by the religious leadership.
  • Jabar 'Asakla from the Eastern Galilee town of Mghar for the Joint List. 'Asakla is a secretary of the communist dominated HADASH gathering. He had also been elected first in 2019.
  • Hamad 'Amar from the city of Shafa'amr (or Shefar'am in Hebrew) is the only reelected Druze veteran politician. 'Amar has almost continuously served in the Knesset for rightwing Israel Beiteinu since 2009 and enjoys a solid degree of popularity in his community.
-Non of the Zionist parties will have an Arab MK (technically, Druze are not Arab by Israeli law), not even the Labor-Meretz alliance. Leftwing Meretz had been very successful among the Arab population last year but didn't include an Arab candidate on it's ticket this time. This also means that the Joint List can claim to represent the Arab population of Israel almost exclusively.

-Of the Joint List's 15 MKs:
  • One is Jewish (Ofer Cassif)
  • One is Druze
  • Two are Christian (Mtanes Shehadeh, the leader of the secular BALAD party, and Aida Suleiman-Touma from HADASH)
  • four are female and do represent all components of the Joint List, namely HADASH, BALAD, Ta'al and the (pretty Islamic) United Arab List.

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