Herzog: Likud list for Knesset not worthy, has fewer women than in Saudi parliament
Women comprise 20% of Saudi Arabia's Consultative Assembly.
By JPOST.COM STAFFIsaac Herzog(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM)
Head of Labor Isaac Herzog commented on the lack of women on the Likud party list saying on Saturday that a list that has less women on it than the number of women in the Saudi Arabian parliament is not worthy to lead the country."Netanyahu [Prime Minister Benjamin] has spit in the face of half of the voters of the state," Herzog said at a cultural event in Mevaseret Zion.Herzog said he was proud that the female representation on the Labor list for the March Knesset election will be "large and central and that it will be a balanced and proper list to lead Israel." MK Miri Regev who won the 5th spot, was the only woman who placed in the top ten candidates for the next election.MK Gila Gamliel, was the only other woman to score a realistic place on the Likud candidate list, won the 14th spot.Did Herzog get his facts right? Perhaps the Labor leader should have checked his facts more carefully before implying that women were not represented, or had extremely low representation, on Saudi Arabia's Consultative Assembly, also known as the Shura Council.
In January of 2013, the Al Arabiya news outlet reported that in a historic decision, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia issued a decree allowing women to be members of the kingdom's parliament. The decree introduced a 20 percent quota for women in the 150-member body, and the king appointed 30 women to join the consultative assembly, according to the report.Women members comprised around 23% of parliament seats in the outgoing Knesset, just a few percentage points ahead of the Saudis.
In other respects, the Knesset and the Saudi Consultative Assembly are definitely not on equal footing, as the the Shura Council does not have the power to pass or enforce laws.
