Who they are
Ahmad Tibi is a doctor who founded the Arab party Ta’al and has sat in the Knesset since 1999. He was Yasser Arafat’s adviser on Israeli affairs.
He was born in Taybeh in 1958, the second of seven children, to Haifa Taji of Ramla and Kamel Tibi of Jaffa. He graduated in medicine from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1983, qualified as a doctor three years later and began a gynaecology residency at Hadassah Mount Scopus, but was dismissed in 1987 after he threw his bag at a guard at the hospital entrance and injured him.
Tibi was politically active as a student. He met Arafat in Tunis in 1984 in breach of the Israeli ban on contact with the PLO, and was questioned by police several times, barred for a period from leaving the country and once arrested. After the Oslo accords he became Arafat’s adviser on Israeli affairs, and he spoke for the Palestinian delegation at the Wye Plantation summit in 1998. He founded Ta’al with a group of Arab academics in 1995 and led it into an election in which it fell below the threshold, then reached the Knesset on a joint list with Azmi Bishara’s Balad, a partnership that broke up soon after the vote.
After two visits to Lebanon in 2005 the attorney general weighed charging him under the anti-infiltration law, and closed the file.
Positions and record
Statehood: In his December 2002 candidate interview, called for ending the occupation and establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Equal citizenship: In December 2002, pledged to improve the civil and legal status of Israel’s Arab minority and secure full civic partnership and influence over decision-making.
Crime prevention: In June 2026, opposed diverting Arab society’s education and welfare funding to policing. Called for investment in young people and civilian services to prevent recruitment into crime.
Where they stand
Holds the party line on every issue.