An Israeli Arab and a Druze leader who comprise the “Progress and Development” Knesset faction closely linked to the Labor Alignment here announced that they were breaking their ties with Labor and forming an independent faction of their own. A formal notification of their intentions was sent to the Alignment’s Knesset whip, Moshe Wertman, by Druze Sheikh Jaber Muadi and the former Mayor of Nazareth, Seif-A-Din Zuabi.
Muadi occupies the post of Deputy Minister of Agriculture. He did not say in the letter that he intended to relinquish it. But he and Zuabi complained that they were consistently overlooked by the Labor Alignment Leadership and never consulted. They noted that when Premier Yitzhak Rabin, Foreign Minister Yigal Allon and former Foreign Minister Abba Eban held meetings with Israeli Arab leaders, “We were not invited and were left outside. Things are done without our being asked, as if we do not exist.” they wrote.
The two Makes said their move was not precipitated by the recent disturbances in Israel’s Arab sector which resulted in the deaths of six Arabs ###with###last March 30. They stated, in fact, that it was only the tense situations that prevented them from announcing their break-away earlier. Muadi and Zuabi reportedly were piqued over a meeting Rabin and Allon held last week with another Arab group calling itself “Change and Co-existence.” The latter group, which works within the Labor Alignment, claims to represent Israeli Arabs in the Knesset and is viewed as a rival by Muadi and Zuabi.
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