Bayit Yehudi faction chairperson MK Shuli Muallem was appointed on Wednesday as member of the Foreign and Defense Committee in the place of former MK Yinon Magal, who announced his retirement from politics last week because of a sex harassment scandal. Muallem was informed earlier by party chairman Minister Naftali Bennett that she had become the first woman from a Religious Zionist party (Bayit Yehudi and the NRP) to serve at this prestigious committee.
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is one of the two most important permanent committees, along with the Finance Committee. Article 13 (a) (4) of the Knesset Rules of Procedure provides that the committee business involves the foreign policy of the State of Israel, its armed forces and its security. The committee’s role is to carry out legislation on security and foreign policy issues, and to monitor and control the relevant ministries and approve their budgets. The current committee chairman MK Tzachi Hanegbi (Likud), is also the coalition chairman.
Last week Muallem was appointed faction chairperson, also in place of Magal, after she had returned to the Knesset only two months ago as part of the Norwegian law. Having landed the 9th spot in the Bayit Yehudi primaries, Mualem remained outside the Knesset, as her party only won 8 seats. However, Bennett used the Norwegian Law to resign from the Knesset while serving as government minister, to let Mualem in. With Magal resigning last week, Bennett decided to block the path of the next party candidate on the list and take back his Knesset seat.
Shulamit “Shuli” Mualem-Rafaeli is a professional nurse. She served as a Bayit Yehudi member of Knesset between February 2013 and March 2015, and again since October 2015. Born in Haifa in 1965, Mualem was one of nine children of parents who had immigrated from Morocco two months before she was born. During her national service in the IDF she worked as a teacher. In 1997, her husband Lt.-Col. Moshe Mualem was the highest-ranking officer among the 76 IDF soldiers killed in a helicopter crash in northern Israel. Shuli Mualem then served as Deputy and Acting Chairperson of the IDF Widows and Orphans organization. She has since remarried and has 7 children.