Tawfik Toubi
Tawfik Toubi ( Hebrew תופיק טובי, * May 11, 1922 in Haifa ; † March 12, 2011 ) was an Israeli politician from the communist parties Maki and Rakach, a long-time member of the Knesset and a well-known representative of the Arab Israelis .
Life
Toubi came from a Christian Arab family and attended Christian schools in Haifa and later the British Mission Boarding School in Jerusalem . In 1940 he became a member of the Communist Party of Palestine, which was founded in 1921, and was one of the founding members of the League for National Liberation in 1943. Between 1943 and 1949 he was an employee of the public works department of the British Mandate Administration of Palestine and in 1948 one of the founders of the Israeli Communist Party (Maki), where he also became a member of the Central Committee, the Office and the Secretariat.
In February 1949 he was elected a member of the first Knesset and served as a representative of the Communist Party for 41 years until July 1990. During his long term membership he was a member of the main committee as well as the committees for home affairs, for constitution, law and justice, for education and culture and for economy.
Toubi, who also became a member of the National Peace Committee in 1950, was at times also a member of the World Peace Council . He was also the publisher and editor of the Arabic-language communist daily Al Itihad .
He achieved national fame in 1956 when he discovered the Kafr Qasim massacre , in which members of the border police murdered 48 Arab civilians and an unborn baby died.
When the Maki split in 1965, he and Emil Habibi and Meir Vilner broke away from the Maki after differences of opinion over the increasing anti-Israeli stance of the Soviet Union and became a member of the Rakach. Between 1976 and 1989 he was Deputy General Secretary of the Communist Party, which was now part of the Chadash electoral alliance . He then became secretary of the Communist Party and held this position until 1993 after he left the Knesset.
At his death, Toubi was the last living member of the first Knesset.
Web links
- Entry on the homepage of the Knesset
- THE JERUSALEM POST: Former Knesset MK Tawfik Toubi dies at 88 (March 12, 2011)
- HAARETZ: Last member of Israel's first Knesset dies at 89 (March 13, 2011)
- THE INDEPENDENT (obituary, March 29, 2011)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Toubi, Tawfik |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 11, 1922 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Haifa |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 12, 2011 |