By Stan Goodenough
May 18, 2006
A former advisor to PLO chief Yasser Arafat and one of the most virulent of Israel-hating Arab parliamentarians was Wednesday selected for the influential position of Deputy Speaker of the Knesset.
Ahmad Tibi had Dalia Itzik, Labor Party member turned Kadima Party member, to thank for his appointment.
Itzik, in turn, was elected Knesset Speaker earlier this month by the new Kadima-led government, which heaped praise upon itself for choosing a woman to fill that post for the very first time.
Within hours of accepting the appointment, Itzik intervened to get the Knesset Committee to increase the number of deputy speakers from seven to eight in order, specifically, to enable an Arab MK's inclusion in the list.
Having successfully patronized the Israeli Arab electorate, she announced her choice for that place: United Arab List-Ta'al Party MK Ahmad Tibi.
Tibi, a medical doctor, has an interesting history as a citizen of Israel.
He entered Israeli politics in 1999 and won a place in the 15th Knesset the following year.
In order to run in those elections, however, he had first to resign his previous post in "Palestinian" politics. For ever since 1993 he had been political advisor to Yasser Arafat.
In that role, Tibi assisted the arch-enemy of the Jews in the negotiations that culminated that November with the signing of the Oslo Accords ? the agreement that led directly to unprecedented terrorism against Tibi's fellow countrymen.
As "suicide" bombers became part of the Israeli-Palestinian equation, and the number of Jewish dead and wounded began to climb, Tibi stayed with Arafat, even representing the "Palestinians" at the Wye River negotiations in 1998.
Once that task was over, he is believed to have received Arafat's personal blessing to run for a position in the Knesset.
As an MK he has persisted without pause in championing the "Palestinian" cause that continues to bleed his country and threaten its security.
From his seat in the plenum he frequently ? and usually vehemently ? denounces Israeli actions of self defense against terrorism and defends and encourages violent Arab efforts to overthrow his country, all the while working to change Israel from a Jewish state into a one-man-one-vote democracy.
Tibi fully supports the creation of Palestine on Jewish lands, the division of Jerusalem and the "right of return" of millions of Palestinian Arabs into Israel "proper."
His elevation to the Speaker's chair will only enhance his ability to push forward his agenda for the destruction of the Jewish national home.
That he will now have that ability testifies to the major inroads made by the secular-humanist sector of Israeli society that appears to have finally come of age as the unchallengeable majority in the land.