Akram Hasson was sworn in to the Knesset on Monday, and he will begin serving as an MK on behalf of the Kulanu faction. Hasson, who served as a Kadima MK in 18th Knesset, is replacing Kulanu`s chairman, Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, who resigned from the Knesset under the so-called ”Norwegian Law.”
The Norwegian Law allows for each party in the coalition to add an additional Knesset member, in place of its minister or deputy minister who chooses to resign and make room for the next candidate on the party’s list. The maneuver is named after the Norwegian parliament, which started the practice.
”I am proud to be a member of a social-national party,” Hasson said after pledging his loyalty to the State of Israel. ”We the Druze have always felt that we are second class citizens, that our villages are not being developed. We educate our children to serve the country, and when they return home they do not have a roof over their heads. Sixty percent of our population live on one salary. I believe the situation can be changed. I believe there is no other country for Israel’s Arabs, even though it is the state of the Jews, and therefore we must change the situation. Therefore, we must reach a deal that will bring peace and hope.”
The Druze, he noted, are the ethnic group with the highest percentage of people who serve in the army, ”but there is frustration.” The Jewish people ”have no better friend than the Druze,” so the Druze must not be treated in a way that makes them feel like second class citizens,” Hasson told the Knesset plenum.
Minister Kahlon welcomed Hasson back to the Knesset and said ”you are a loyal and respectable representative of the Druze in particular and of the citizens of Israel in general.” He also thanked Hasson for agreeing to join the Kulanu party.