Talk:Raleb Majadele

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[edit] The spelling of his name

Can anyone confirm the correct English spelling of his name? The English-site of Haaretz refers to him as Ghaleb Majadele. It would be useful if someone could add the Arabic (and Hebrew) spelling as well. Em-jay-es 23:00, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

All the English-language sources I've found (including Haaretz, which is linked in the References section) use "Raleb Majadele", but it looks like "Ghaleb Majadele" is also a possible rendering. The official Knesset site (also in the References) uses "Raleb", though, so I think we should stick with that. I agree having the Hebrew and Arabic spellings added would nice, but I don't know them. --Delirium 23:34, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
In fact, both sepllings should be possible. In Arabic exists two 'r' sounds - Ghayn which sounds similar to 'r' in German or French and Ra which sounds like 'r' in Spanish. In Hebrew there's just one single letter for 'r' - Resh. Thus 'Raleb' is a trancription of the hebrew spelling of this name and 'Ghaleb' is transcribed from Arabic. --DeBoer 22:26, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
While I don't disagree with the facts cited by DeBoer above, let me add: per common usage, the letter Ghayn should always be transliterated as GH except when an alternate spelling exists for historical reasons (eg Gaza). The inability of most Israelis to properly pronounce the letter Resh in the Hebrew alphabet (which is discussed at length elsewhere, and is basically a continuation of the way the same letter is pronounced in Yiddish) is a poor excuse for mangling an Arabic name. No Arab would ever use an R as opposed to GH.
By the way, Israelis are advised by academics to write Ghayn as a Hebrew 'Ayn with an apostrophe, but routinely ignore this advice and write ghayns as G (eg Bagdad, Abu Gosh) or R (eg Raleb, the village of "Rajar") on a convenience basis. elpincha 13:40, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] First Arab, really?

So there's no question about the fact that Majadele is the first Muslim cabinet member but I don't think he's the first Arab. Salah Tarif predated him and though he is Druze, not Muslim, he's still an Arab.--Lairor 00:20, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

This appears to depend on delicate questions of whether Druze are Arabs (apparently the Druze themselves disagree on that issue). As a result, some of the sources we quote call Majadele the "first Arab minister", while others don't. Most seem to, for whatever reason; none of the linked news articles we cite here mention Tarif, and some digging finds that when Tarif was appointed, the reports at the time all called him the "first non-Jewish minister", and didn't refer to him as Arab. --Delirium 06:12, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
The question is "delicate" mainly on a political level. IMHO all evidence points to an affirmative answer. I recall Druze guys from Bet Jann argued for "yes" when discussing this one evening. Both were combat soldiers with the IDF and were not looking to make an anti-Zionist case. I also recall Rafiq Halabi once argued for the affirmative as well. The negative answer seems to be just a political construct. Don't dig too deep into this, though. elpincha 13:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)