Radical Arab MK Ahmed Tibi of the joint Arab list has announced that his party is willing to forego spots on the sensitive Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee in the Knesset, in exchange calling for two extra seats at the Finance Committee, reports Kol Yisrael.
The Arab list would have been able to join the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which discusses strategic security matters, due to having won 13 seats in the elections and becoming the third largest party, after the Arab parties banded together for the first time due to the threshold percentage being raised.
MK Ze'ev Elkin, the Likud representative who heads the Committee, said the Arab list request to have spots in the Finance Committee instead will be possible if another party is found that is willing to exchange placement.
Many viewed with concern the possibility that Tibi or other members of his party would sit on the sensitive committee - Tibi himself was an adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) founder and arch terrorist Yasser Arafat between the years of 1993 and 1999.
Late last year the Arab MK traveled to Belgium to urge the parliament to pass sanctions against Israel, after traveling to London to push for a non-binding vote recognizing the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the "state of Palestine" just a month earlier - that vote later passed.
And his compatriots in the party have similarly troubling records, with MK Hanin Zoabi having openly expressed support for the Hamas terrorist organization, as well as having taken part in the 2010 Mavi Marmara flotilla in which IDF soldiers were assaulted with lethal weapons.
Meanwhile the head of the joint Arab list, Ayman Odeh, has revealed his subversive past in which he was highly influenced by the PLO and the first intifada terror war, taking part in numerous violent protests and being arrested for attacking police officers.
The talk of committee membership comes as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is busily trying to form a coalition government.
On Thursday Likud representatives met with members of Shas, Jewish Home and Yisrael Beytenu. Netanyahu also met with Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett, although the meeting was said to have ended inconclusively.