Israeli-Arab Raleb Majadele will take the place of Ophir Pines - who resigned two months ago because he didn't want to sit in the same government as Avigdor Lieberman, who he felt was too anti-Arab.

The appointment of Labor MK Majadele as Minister of Science was decided upon Wednesday evening by Defense Minister Amir Peretz (pictured). As head of the Labor Party, Peretz has the right to choose his party's ministers - though of course Prime Minister Ehud Olmert makes the official appointment. This will probably happen on Sunday.

The decision to appoint an Arab to the Cabinet was received cynically within the political establishment. Ex-Minister Pines, who finds himself upstaged - an Arab is willing to sit with a minister who Pines said was too anti-Arab - said that Peretz is merely trying to win over the Arab sector in the coming Labor Party primaries. "This is a Peretz-Majadele machination that is a new record in cynicism and insult to the voters' intelligence," Pines said...

...Though Majadele is the first Arab to serve in the Israeli government, he is not the first non-Jew to do so. Salah Tarif, of the Druze community, served as a Minister Without Portfolio for ten months in 2001. Tarif resigned because of a criminal investigation against him that led to his conviction on charges of bribing an Interior Ministry official to obtain citizenship for a friend of his from the Palestinian Authority...