Web Desk:
According to The Times of Israel, Judicial Appointments Committee on Monday appointed four new Supreme Court justices, among them the court’s first Muslim and first Mizrahi woman.
The four new justices appointed to the 15-member court are Judge Ruth Ronnen, Judge Gila Kanfi-Steinitz, attorney Yechiel Kasher and Judge Khaled Kabub.
More than 20 percent of Israeli citizens are Arab, and there has been an Arab jurist on the top court since 2003, but all previous appointees have been Christian.
Khaled Kabub, 63, has become the first Muslim permanently named to the tribunal in the nation where Arabs, Christian and Muslim, have complained of systematic discrimination.
Born in Jaffa, Kabub studied history and Islam at Tel Aviv University. He completed his law degree there, and then worked in private practice before becoming a judge.
Judge Kabub currently serves as vice president of the Tel Aviv District Court, will be the Supreme Court’s first permanent Muslim justice. In September 1997, Kabub was appointed as a judge to the Netanya Magistrate’s Court.
In June 2003, he was appointed a judge of the Tel Aviv District Court and in September 2017was appointed as vice president. His most significant ruling was the 2016 conviction of former billionaire Nochi Dankner for manipulating shares in his company.
The only other Muslim to have sat on the Supreme Court was Abdel Rahman Zoabi, who was given a temporary, one-year term, in 1999.
