Who they are
Fleur Hassan Nahoum was deputy mayor of Jerusalem and co-founded the business council set up between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. She was born in London in 1973 and grew up in Gibraltar, the daughter of Sir Joshua Hassan, the territory’s chief minister, and Marcelle Ben-Simon, both Moroccan Jews. She returned to London in 1991 to read law at King’s College, qualified as a barrister in 1997 and ran campaigns for World Jewish Relief. She moved to Israel in 2001.
She held a senior post at the Joint and from 2007 ran the Tikva children’s home, which takes in Jewish children from the former Soviet Union, and she co-founded the communications consultancy Message Experts. She joined the liberal Yerushalmim party in 2013, came onto Jerusalem’s city council through a rotation, led its heritage preservation committee and later chaired the party. Moshe Lion appointed her deputy mayor with tourism and foreign relations, a brief that covered international economic development and diaspora affairs, and work with the American State Department on plans for an embassy district in the city.
Ahead of the peace agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates she was among the founders of the UAE-Israel Business Council. The foreign minister, Eli Cohen, named her the ministry’s special envoy for innovation.
Positions and record
Gaza: Would let Gazans who want to leave go, but rejects forcing anyone out: "I don't believe in forcibly removing anyone." Her plan is disarming Hamas and changing Gaza's governance for the population that stays.
A Palestinian state: Opposes statehood and dates her change of mind to her arrival in Israel in 2001. Her alternative is autonomy or federation, on the Gibraltar model, "without any of the tools to destroy the State of Israel".
Judea and Samaria: Wrote in 2020 in favour of applying Israeli law to the Jewish communities of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley, arguing it "is not and has never been the real barrier" to peace.
Religion and state: "I'm a big believer in the separation of synagogue and state," and religious posts should not be government jobs. In Jerusalem she pressed to expand Shabbat cultural activity while keeping the status quo.
The Abraham Accords: Co-founded the UAE-Israel Business Council. Argues Israel should reward the Emirates and stop courting Saudi Arabia: "let's embrace the people who love us rather than bending ourselves backward for the people who hate us."
Where they stand
Breaks with the party line on 3 issues, marked below.