Knesset member, Armenian issues supporter Haim Oron is going to retire.

“Mr. Oron is likely to be replaced by Zahava Gal-On,” deputy editor-in-chief of IzRus portal Alexander Goldenshtein told a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter.

“There are few politicians in Israel who are civilized and educated like Oron,” Goldenshtein said.

Haim Oron was born in Tel-Aviv in 1940. He served as secretary of the Hashomer Hatzair movement from 1968-1971, and as later secretary of the movement’ leadership. He was a founding member of the Peace Now movement. From 1994-1995 he was treasurer of the Histadrut (New General Federation of Labor). Oron has been a Member of Knesset since 1988. In 2009, he introduced a draft resolution on recognition of the Armenian Genocide but the motion failed to gain the essential number of co-sponsors.

Gal-On was born in 1956 in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, in the former Soviet Union and immigrated to Israel in 1960. She served as general secretary of the paper Politika, of the Human Rights organization B'Tselem, and of the Ratz party. She is a member of the general directorate of Meretz. Among her main activities are the struggle for human and civil rights, women's rights and the fight for social justice. She was elected to the Knesset in 1999, and served as chairwoman of the Knesset committee for the struggle against trafficking in women. She was also a member of the Knesset law and constitution committee.