ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the social profile and political world of Oriental and Arab women who were elected to local governments in Israel. While women are underrepresented in Israeli local politics, the scantiest representation is reserved for women of Asian-African descent, that is "Oriental" and Arab women. In the 1980s a quarter of the women of Asian-African extraction, compared with 6 percent of their European-American counterparts, said the reason they had entered politics was the need for women's representation. The paradoxical result is a convergence of the interests of the conservative forces in the Arab community, which are unhappy about women's forays into politics, with those of the central government. M. Al-Haj and H. Rosenfeld maintains that clanbased politics is the handiwork of the general population, which, particularly among the Christians and Druse, views the hamula as an effective instrument for organization.
