Knesset Bill Funds Druze and Circassian Communities
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will submit a plan to the Knesset for significant investments in the Arab Druze and Muslim Circassian communities.
The plan will include funds for education, infrastructure, and employment “in order to reduce the existing disparities,” Netanyahu announced Saturday night on his Facebook page, an on Sunday in an official announcement from his office
Netanyahu met last week with leaders of the Druze community, where he told them about plans to submit the bill.
During the meeting, Netanyahu also told the leaders that the nationality, or Israel as a Jewish nation-state, bill set to be voted on next week would not harm their status and would even entrench their equality in Israeli society.
About 130,000 Druze live in northern Israel. There are about 4,000 Israeli Circassians living in two villages in northern Israel. The Circassians in Israel are Sunni Muslims who were expelled in the late 1800s by the Russians from the Caucasus Mountains.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
