The Israeli Foreign Ministry, on Wednesday, appointed Rasha Atamny as the state’s representative to Ankara, making her Israel’s first female Muslim diplomat.
The 31-year-old Palestinian was born in a small Arab town on the Israeli side of the West Bank border. She studied psychology at Hebrew University and was then accepted in a competitive three-year foreign ministry cadet course.
In a blog written while she was still completing her course, Atamny said she decided become a diplomat came after a three-month internship at the Israeli mission at the UN.
“One turning point will always stay with me: one day, I sat down in my usual seat in the human rights committee, and listened with great interest to a discussion taking place on women’s rights violations,” she wrote in Hebrew.
Israel has previously appointed male Muslims to foreign diplomatic roles, as well as female Muslims to Foreign Ministry jobs in the state, but never abroad.
Courtesy: RT
