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On November 4, Rula Daood became the first woman to apply to lead the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, an umbrella organization that advocates for Arab communities within Israel at the national level.
For Daood, the national co-director of the grassroots movement Standing Together, this would have been a step from activism into politics. "I wanted to bring a new face and a new agenda to the committee," she tells Haaretz. A change, she says, that is badly needed.
The chairman of the committee sets the political agenda for Arab Israeli citizens. It is the only elected position on the committee, which comprises of Arab Knesset members, local council heads and representatives of different streams in the Arab community. Until this weekend, the post was held by former Hadash MK Mohammed Barakeh for a decade. The election, which took place on Saturday, was won by Jamal Zahalka, former chairman of the Balad party.
"The Higher Committee is supposed to mobilize and organize the Arab minority in Israel," Daood, 40, said in an interview with Haaretz before Saturday's election. "It is a powerful place that could bring Palestinian rights forward, but it hasn't been using its power for the past 20 years. "
The committee was founded when protests among Palestinians against then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin's right-wing government grew stronger – ultimately leading to the first intifada in the eighties. The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee was meant to function as a unifying independent political organization that would coordinate the political activities of various Israeli Arab nonprofits, advocacy groups and other organizations, leading to change at a national level for...