Who they are
Waleed Alhwashla is a Ra’am member of the Knesset for the Negev and chairs the general assembly of the southern branch of the Islamic Movement. He was born in 1981 in Sawa, a Bedouin village in the Negev east of Be’er Sheva, and took a bachelor’s degree in Middle East studies and a master’s in political science at the University of Haifa. He refereed for the Israel Football Association, including in the top leagues, for thirteen years.
He was elected in 2017 to represent his village on the Al-Kasom regional council, then spent about eighteen months as adviser to the Ra’am member of Knesset Said Alharumi. In 2020 he was made director and spokesman of Ra’am’s Knesset faction, a post he held through the party’s entry into the Bennett and Lapid coalition. He was elected to chair the movement’s general assembly in early 2022, and that June, after Alharumi’s death, won the party contest to be its Negev representative against Fayez Abu Sahiban, the mayor of Rahat.
In the Knesset he chairs the lobby for the unrecognised Negev villages and sits on the state control and national security committees. He leads Negev Day, started by his predecessors Talab Abu Arar and Alharumi, on which Knesset committees debate the challenges facing Bedouin society, and has campaigned against house demolitions. On 7 October 2023 he set up an emergency centre in Hura for Bedouin residents of the Negev.
Positions and record
Recognition: Legalize unrecognized Bedouin villages.
Electricity: Connect off-grid communities.
Land: A negotiated settlement of land claims.
Where they stand
Holds the party line on every issue.