Haredi housing minister inaugurates new municipal buildings in northern Arab town

Speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new cultural center, municipal office building and library in the Arab village of Mazra’a in the Western Galilee, Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf says that his ministry “works for the Arab public and for all citizens of Israel, and you can see the results on the ground.”

About 200 people attend the festive event in Mazra’a’s newly developed neighborhood with a musical performance by a local youth band.

“It isn’t obvious that an Arab municipality would get this kind of money from a right-wing government,” Firas Badhe, of the Arab village of Kfar Kara, tells Goldknopf — who is chairman of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party — in a special meeting with a dozen representatives from the Arab Local Authorities.

“We are 18% of the population,” Ahmed Dabach, head of the Arab village of Deir Al-Assad, tells The Times of Israel. “It would be good if we get even 15% of the national budget.”

“There’s a dream and there’s reality and we’ll wait to see if the distance closes between them,” adds Dr. Ghazl Aboriya, spokesperson for the Arab town of Sahknin.

At the ceremony in the cultural center auditorium, Mazra’a Mayor Foad Awad thanks the minister for his help and says he is full of “happiness and pride.”

He points out that the new library will expand “knowledge and wisdom,” and the cultural center is a “symbol of the citizens.”

“This is all good news,” Awad says.