As a postscript to recent correspondence, the new government in Israel must be a big disappointment to those who insist on calling it an “apartheid state”; not that anything will stop them.
Issawi Frej is Arab and Muslim and used to work for the Peace Now movement. Now he’s Israel’s minister for regional co-operation. Pnina Tamano-Shata is black: the Mossad rescued her, along with thousands of other Ethiopian Jews, from hunger and persecution when she was a small child. She’s the minister for immigration & absorption.
Health minister Nitzan Horowitz is the first openly gay man to lead an Israeli political party. At least one deputy minister, as yet unnamed, is expected to be a member of the Raam party, which is an outgrowth of the major Islamist political group in Israel.
As for the rule of law and accountability, Benjamin Netanyahu faces criminal indictments in multiple cases. His immediate predecessor as prime minister, Ehud Olmert, spent 16 months in prison on corruption charges.
SA should be so lucky as to have such a diverse government and effective criminal justice system
Meanwhile, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, “postponed” elections in April. He’s in the 17th year of his elected four-year term of office.
Amusing if it wasn’t so transparently malicious.
Sydney Kaye
Cape Town
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