Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Finance Minister Moashe Kahlon, Communications Minister Ayoub Kara, and Knesset Members Hamed Amar and Akram Hasson met on Thursday afternoon to discuss the needs of the Druze community in the wake of the passage of the Nationality Law.
Tomorrow, Prime Minister Netanyahu will meet with dignitaries of the Druze community in Israel, headed by Sheikh Mu'afak Tarif.
Immediately after the conclusion of these consultations, a plan will be formulated that will express the deep commitment of the State of Israel to the Druze community.
At the end of the meeting, it was reported that "the conversation took place in a spirit of matter and positive."
Minister Kara described the meeting on his Twitter account. ""Following my request, we met with the prime minister and with Ministers Liberman, Kahlon, and Levin, and MKs Hamad Amar and Akram Hasson, to discuss the needs of Druze society. After this positive meeting, the prime minister will meet with the dignitaries of the community, headed by Sheikh Tarif, and immediately after these consultations a plan will be formulated that will express the deep commitment of the State of Israel to the Druze."
Earlier this week, Druze MK Akram Hasson (Kulanu), together with the Druze Lawyers' Forum and Chairman of the Forum of Druze and Circassian Community Leaders, petitioned the Supreme Court to cancel the Nationality Law.
"We have no problem with the Jewish people and we have no problem that the State of Israel is the home of the Jewish people, but what about us?" asked Hasson. "What about those who sacrificed for the establishment of the state and fought for it? What about 420 killed and over 1,200 wounded IDF soldiers?
"The Nationality Law makes me a second-class citizen," he said. "After all, we are discriminated against as citizens, in planning, education, budgets and what not. Now we have to come and enact a law that opens a gap between the minorities and the Jews and basically pushes farther away hope of an equal starting line for my children and Jewish children,” continued Hasson.
"There is no doubt that the State of Israel is the state of the Jewish people, but why open up gaps and show how racist we are in this country," Hasson said.
MK Hasson, a member of the coalition, voted against the law and even voted in favor of all the reservations against it, and acted to thwart the law even though he is sitting in the Knesset in place of Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. "We will do everything to stop this racist law, and not just for my community, but mainly for the beautiful faces of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The law hurts my Jewish brothers first and foremost. Unfortunately, cheap political considerations won against the good of the State of Israel. In Ben-Gurion or Begin’s time, the law would not have been brought forward.”