Israeli Arab
The Arab citizens of Israel form the country's largest ethnic minority. Their community mainly consists of former Palestinian Citizenship Order 1925, Mandatory Palestine citizens (and their descendants) who continued to inhabit the territory ...
politician who served as a member of the
Knesset
The Knesset ( , ) is the Unicameralism, unicameral legislature of Israel.
The Knesset passes all laws, elects the President of Israel, president and Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister, approves the Cabinet of Israel, cabinet, and supe ...
for
Ahdut HaAvoda
Ahdut HaAvoda () was the name used by a series of List of political parties in Israel, political parties in Israel. Ahdut HaAvoda in its first incarnation was led by David Ben-Gurion. It was first established during the period of Mandatory Pales ...
between 1964 and 1965.
Biography
Born in
Tayibe
Tayibe, also spelled Taibeh or Tayiba, (, South Levantine pronunciation: ; ) is an Arab city in central Israel, north east of Kfar Saba.Tira during the
Ottoman era
The Ottoman Empire (), also called the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that controlled much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Euro ...
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...
. Between 1932 and 1948 he worked in the Surveyors Office of the Mandate authorities. From 1951 until 1955 he was the director of the Income Tax office in the
Triangle
A triangle is a polygon with three corners and three sides, one of the basic shapes in geometry. The corners, also called ''vertices'', are zero-dimensional points while the sides connecting them, also called ''edges'', are one-dimension ...
area, before serving as director and secretary of the Kupat Holim in Tayibe between 1955 and 1958.
A member of the Arab department of Ahdut HaAvoda, he was on the party's list for the 1961 elections. Although he failed to win a seat, he entered the Knesset on 11 May 1964 when
Yitzhak Ben-Aharon
Yitzhak Ben-Aharon (; 17 July 1906 – 19 May 2006) was an Israeli left-wing politician.
He was a Knesset member from the first to the fifth Knessets and in the seventh and eighth, and a former Transportation Minister of Israel, Minister of ...
was asked by the party to resign to allow Jabara to take his place.
Sabri Jiryis
Sabri Jiryis (, , ; born in 1938), also known as Sabri Jaris, Sabri Geries or Sabri Jirais, is a Palestinian- Arab Israeli writer and lawyer, a graduate of the Hebrew University law faculty, and Palestinian activist. In 1966, the first edition of ...