As Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu deals with trying to please possible coalition partners, he also faces the demands of non-Jewish community leaders. 

Druze leaders will hold their first organized meeting Sunday to discuss sending an official petition to Netanyahu. They plan to request that the likely next prime minister of Israel appoint a non-Jewish minister to his new government.

According to a Channel Ten report, the Druze leaders will demand a non-Jewish minister of minorities – a position resurrected in 1999, that is now under the supervision of a minister without portfolio. 

The position was last held by Independence party MK Shalom Simhon, and has been vacant since the 18th Knesset dissolved in 2013. 

Several candidates have been offered as nominees for the minister of minorities, including former and incoming MK Ayoub Kara from Likud and current MK Hamad Amar from Yisrael Beytenu. 

The petition to the Prime Minister will be filed by the chief spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community, Sheikh Muafak Tarif. 

“Netanyahu must embrace the non-Jewish public in Israel, in part because of the harsh remarks made by the Prime Minister during this election campaign, which succeeded in angering even US President Obama,” prominent Israeli priest Gabriel Naddaf and Kara said in a joint statement. 

Naddaf and Kara are referring specifically to comments made by Netanyahu on the day of elections, in which he controversially urged citizens to vote for Likud to combat the “huge numbers of Arabs” coming out to vote.