The Christian Science Monitor

A seat at the table: Wave of Arab women running in local elections in Israel

Fidaa Shehadeh, one of the many Israeli Arab women competing for positions on local councils across Israel, is running in her native Lod, a mixed Arab-Jewish city in the center of the country.

Examining the remains of a hotel built more than a century ago in this working-class, mixed Jewish and Arab city, Fidaa Shehadeh pauses to admire the engraved decorative detail on the building’s arched doorway.

Weeds grow out of the old building’s large blocks of beige-colored stone. Below, plastic bottles and bits of other trash are strewn on the sandy ground.

“So much could be done here, this should be a tourism site,” says Ms. Shehadeh, noting the handful of other remains nearby that – until the 1948 Middle East war that led to the creation of Israel – was the town’s center, an area that dates back almost 800 years.

Shehadeh, a 30-something urban planner, was born and grew up in Lod. Today

From recruiter to candidateLaying the groundworkThe path ahead

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