State Duma second half of the 1990s, the Duma became an important forum for lobbying by regional leaders and businessmen looking for tax breaks and legislative favors. The work of the leading committees, such as those for defense, foreign affairs, or budget, attracted a good deal of media attention and lobbying activity. In the early 2000s, following the 1999 parliamentary elections, the pro-presidential Unity party and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation were the leading forces in the State Duma. A 2016 exposé by Dissernet showed that 1 in 9 members of the State Duma had obtained academic degrees with theses
Duma arson attack of membership in a terrorist organization. It emerged in investigations that the attack had apparently been planned in a cave called the "Red House" built from a previously existing Palestinian structure, on a site that was then turned into an Israeli outpost called "Yishuv HaDaat." According to Rabbis for Human Rights, the state still plans to legalize this same outpost, though it was stolen through threats and violence from its Palestinian owners. On 31 July 2015, two family homes in Duma, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, were firebombed by masked attackers. According to all reports, the first house