Issawi Frej

Frej was born in 1963 in Kafr Qasim and grew up as the eldest of 12 children.[1] At approximately age 17½, he left for Jerusalem to enroll in a preparatory program. He subsequently studied economics and accounting at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.[2][3]

Frej has described his political awareness at the beginning of his university studies as negligible. Student activism during the First Lebanon War, including demonstrations and the distribution of leaflets, drew him into politics.[2] He said that hearing Shulamit Aloni speak led him to join Ratz and that he remained active as it became part of Meretz.[2] He was also formerly a member of the secretariat of Peace Now.[4] After 18 years in Jerusalem, he returned to Kafr Qasim in 2001, a move he described as the beginning of his formal political career.[2]

The 1956 Kafr Qasim massacre became a defining element of Frej's family history. His grandfather was killed by Israeli Border Police in the massacre, and Frej has said that other members of his family were also among those killed.[1][5] He described the community as remaining traumatized for approximately 20 years and advocated teaching the massacre in schools.[5]

Frej is married to Nihyaya and has continued to identify Kafr Qasim as his home.[3] In early 2022, he suffered a stroke after noticing difficulty walking and dropping a coffee cup during a meeting with Moroccan representatives. His staff took him to Ichilov Hospital, where he was admitted to intensive care. In a subsequent interview, he reported impairment in his right leg and hand and said he was awaiting physiotherapy.[4]

Frej was first elected to the Knesset in January 2013 as a member of Meretz, appearing fifth on the party's candidate list. Meretz received 164,150 valid votes, or 4.59% of the total, and won six seats.[6] During the 19th Knesset, he served on the Economic Affairs Committee, the Education, Culture and Sports Committee, and the Special Committee for Discussion on the Public Broadcast Bill. He was an alternate member of the Finance Committee and chaired the Lobby for the Promotion of Sports and an Athletic Lifestyle.[3]

His initiatives during that term included a bill addressing Arabic's status in school curricula, efforts to require public bodies to allocate at least 10% of their advertising budgets to Arabic-language outlets, and a proposal concerning Arabic-language public-broadcasting advertisements. He also proposed aligning compensation for victims of "price tag" attacks with compensation for victims of terrorism, requiring pupils to attend at least two interfaith meetings during their school years, and establishing an Arab Society Heritage Center in Israel.[3]

Frej was re-elected in March 2015, appearing third on the Meretz list. Meretz won five seats with 165,529 valid votes, or 3.53% of the total.[7] During the 20th Knesset, he chaired the Subcommittee to Examine the Causes of the Food Shortage during the Holiday Season, served on the Economic Affairs Committee, and headed the Israel-Croatia Parliamentary Friendship Group. He also sponsored a draft law allowing women to be appointed as qadis in Sharia courts.[3] Frej later identified the appointment of Israel's first female qadi after a four-year effort and legislation requiring television translation for deaf people as two of his most meaningful parliamentary accomplishments.[2]

In the April 2019 election, Frej appeared fourth on the Meretz list, which won four seats. In the September 2019 election, he stood sixth on the Democratic Union list, which won five seats, leaving him outside the Knesset.[8] A February 2021 report placed him fifth on Meretz's slate for that year's election.[9]

A Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs article reported that in April 2019 Frej led Meretz members in passing a motion calling for an immediate joint parliamentary faction with Hadash-Ta'al. If that faction did not materialize, the motion proposed restructuring Meretz as a formally Jewish-Arab party, with one Arab and one Jewish chairperson in each official party institution and future publications issued in both Hebrew and Arabic.[10]

Frej served as Minister of Regional Cooperation in Israel's 36th Government, representing Meretz, from June 13, 2021, to December 28, 2022.[11] The government, headed initially by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, was approved by the Knesset by 60 votes to 59, with one abstention. Frej was one of two Arab cabinet ministers, alongside Hamed Amar, in a government of 27 ministers.[12]

Soon after the government's inauguration, Frej ordered the reestablishment of the Israel-Palestinian Joint Economic Committee, one of 26 panels created following the Oslo Accords.[13] In a 2022 interview, he said he chaired the committee and expected it to meet Palestinian Authority officials before the end of that year. He described the Paris Protocol, signed between Israel and the PLO in 1994, as the economic annex of the Oslo Agreement regulating trade relations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.[1]

Frej said that his principal domestic priority was relations between Arabs and Jews inside Israel. He argued that peace processes with the Palestinians and Arab states could not succeed without internal security and healthy Arab-Jewish relations, and described Arab citizens as an integral part of Israel's social mosaic.[1]

In April 2022, Frej became the first Israeli cabinet minister to visit Kosovo, traveling to Pristina at the invitation of the Kosovar government. He met Prime Minister Albin Kurti and Foreign Minister Donika Gërvalla-Schwarz and described bilateral cooperation in economic, cultural, academic, and agricultural fields. His itinerary included a hospital receiving 90 wheelchairs donated by Israel and a meeting with Israeli doctors working with Save a Child's Heart.[14]

Frej also participated in security and regional-policy discussions during his tenure. He was among the senior Arab representatives who participated in an INSS conference on October 19, 2021, concerning recommendations for addressing violence and crime in Arab society. The recommendations had been presented to decision-makers before the government adopted its October 14 decision on the issue.[15] He was also listed as a participant in an INSS conference assessing the Abraham Accords one year after normalization.[16]

In July 2022, Frej announced that he would take a break from the Knesset but not from public life and would encourage Arab-sector participation in the coming election.[17] In an August interview, he said he did not need to return to the political arena and wanted to help the Left-Center bloc succeed.[1]

Frej's appointment as Minister of Regional Cooperation made him one of two Arab ministers in the 36th Government.[12] Contemporary profiles in both The Jerusalem Post and Ynet described him as the second Muslim cabinet minister in Israel's history.[1][4]

Frej has argued that his service, and Arab participation in the coalition more broadly, represented a change in Israeli public consciousness by demonstrating that Arab citizens could participate in government and shape policy from within state institutions.[1][4]

Frej has advocated Arab political participation within Israeli institutions as a means of changing policy and representing his community. He has described Arab citizens as part of Israel's social "mosaic" and argued that their participation in government marked a shift in public consciousness.[1]

At a 2016 event marking 60 years since the Kafr Qasim massacre, Frej said that the anti-Arab atmosphere he associated with the massacre was "even stronger" in the present and noted that more than 4,000 people had attended a commemorative rally. He called for official state recognition of and responsibility for the massacre and advocated teaching it in both Jewish and Arab educational institutions so that young people could understand each other's narratives.[18]

Frej supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[4] On the Citizenship Law, he said he voted to extend the regulation despite opposing it ideologically because he hoped the arrangement would allow at least 1,600 applications from families without status to be examined individually. He described the decision as a conflict with his conscience and said it left him feeling that he had disappointed both sides.[4]