In First, Arab Muslim Joins Israeli Cabinet

JERUSALEM, Jan. 29 -- Israel's cabinet on Sunday approved the first Arab Muslim minister of the Jewish state, a milestone marked here mostly by bitter criticism of what many lawmakers viewed as a politically motivated selection.

Raleb Majadele, a Labor Party legislator, was approved by a wide margin as minister without portfolio in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet. Only Avigdor Lieberman, minister of strategic affairs from the Israel Is Our Home party, voted against the nomination.

Majadele's appointment is "a significant, historic step toward equality and peace in the region," said Amir Peretz, the Labor leader, who chose Majadele for a cabinet post several weeks ago during an ongoing fight for the party leadership.

An Israeli Druze, Saleh Tarif, was appointed minister without portfolio in 2001. But many of Israel's roughly 100,000 Druze, members of a sect that broke with Islam centuries ago, do not identify themselves as Arabs and serve in Israel's army.

By contrast, Israel's approximately 1 million non-Druze Arab citizens, whose families remained in Israel after its founding in 1948 and make up almost a fifth of the population, do not serve in the military and face barriers to owning land and securing equal public services. Most of them are Muslim.

Balad, one of several Arab parties that denounced Majadele's appointment, said in a statement that his service in the cabinet "would give a seal of approval to the policy of racial discrimination against Arabs."

Majadele, a leader in the Histadrut trade union organization that Peretz once headed, is from the northern city of Baqa al-Gharbiya.

Peretz, who serves as defense minister, has watched his popularity plummet because of the inconclusive war against Hezbollah last summer and the army's inability to stop Palestinian rocket fire from the Gaza Strip. He also backtracked on a pledge to leave Olmert's government if Lieberman were made a minister, which occurred in October.

Lieberman has favored a proposal that would strip more than 150,000 Israeli Arabs of their citizenship by redrawing Israel's eastern boundary in a way that would leave them in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank. He has also called for the execution of Israeli Arab lawmakers who meet with officials from Hamas, the radical Islamic party elected to run the Palestinian Authority a year ago.

Peretz selected Majadele at a time when he is being challenged for leadership of the Labor Party, a post that makes him Olmert's chief coalition partner. Many in the party viewed the move as a way to win back its more dovish elements.

Labor lawmaker Ophir Pines-Paz resigned in November as minister of science, culture and sport to protest Lieberman's cabinet appointment. Peretz initially named Majadele, 53, to fill that post. But he was made minister without portfolio pending what some lawmakers say is an imminent cabinet shuffle by Olmert to rejuvenate his unpopular government.

"I have no problem with an Arab minister, but it is not my job to help Amir Peretz with the primaries," Lieberman said after the cabinet vote.

In Gaza, meanwhile, violent clashes between the armed wings of the rival Fatah and Hamas movements continued. Media reports said that at least four Palestinians were killed Sunday and early Monday, including a member of the Hamas security force in Gaza, and that eight others were wounded by gunfire, adding to the scores injured in recent days. Also, Brig. Gen. Sayyed Shabban, a senior commander of a branch of the Palestinian security services controlled by Fatah, was abducted Sunday in Gaza.

Factional violence has erupted periodically since Hamas's parliamentary election victory, which ended Fatah's long monopoly on power. But the death toll since Thursday of at least 29 Palestinians, including several children, is the highest in months.

The clashes, limited largely to Gaza, have prompted Hamas to suspend talks with Fatah over the formation of a power-sharing government acceptable to international donors who cut off aid to the Palestinian Authority after Hamas's victory.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, asked for calm Sunday before an emergency cabinet meeting.

Also on Sunday, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia offered an invitation to Hamas and Fatah leaders to hold talks in Mecca to end the fighting.