Leaders of Israel's Druze community are demanding that a Druze serve in the new government being formed by Prime Minister-designate Binyamin Netanyahu -- and newly re-elected MK Ayoub Kara is hoping that he will become the first.
Five Druze candidates from various parties ran in last month's national elections. Of those, Kara, a veteran Likud party representative, was one of the many sworn in to serve in the new Knesset last week and informed the media that he plans to insist on a ministerial post. Kara is actively recruiting support from the religious and political leadership of his community.
A group of senior members of the Galilee community that included IDF and police officers told journalists at a news conference Sunday, "For 61 years, the Druze community has given and sacrificed the best of its sons." The group called on the Likud party chairman to remember his own statements in the past. "Bibi Netanyahu once said, 'Those that give will receive. Those that don't, wont.' If that's the way it is, the time has come to pay the bill," they said.
Retired police Brigadier General Jad Kablan pointed out that the Druze tied their fate with Israel before the modern Jewish state was born. Kablan noted that this tie was demonstrated mainly in the military, adding that the social gaps still have to be filled. Only a minister from the community can understand the impact of dealing with those gaps, he said, whether in the Druze community or other non-Jewish communities.
"A Druze minister will be the most loyal representative to the government of Israel for dealing with these gaps, and only he can move things forward," Kablan said.
However, Kara acknowledged that his party chairman must get his coalition ducks in a row before deciding who in the party gets what.
"Netanyahu must, first of all, maintain his nationalist coalition of 65 MKs from the parties that supported him and recommended him to the President," he told reporters Sunday night. "We promised a nationalist government, and if, Heaven forbid, we take a different path, our trustworthiness will be sorely compromised."
It is not yet known which portfolio Kara would receive if he is appointed as a minister in the Netanyahu Cabinet.