Muhammed Wattad was an Israeli Arab politician who served as a member of the Knesset

Knesset

The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

 between 1981 and 1988.

Biography

Born in Jatt during the Mandate era, Wattad was a member of the Israeli Communist Youth and Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair

Hashomer Hatzair is a Socialist–Zionist youth movement founded in 1913 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary, and was also the name of the group's political party in the Yishuv in the pre-1948 British Mandate of Palestine...

. He attended Tel Aviv University

Tel Aviv University

Tel Aviv University is a public university located in Ramat Aviv, Tel Aviv, Israel. With nearly 30,000 students, TAU is Israel's largest university.-History:...

, where he took Asian and African Studies.

A member of Mapam

Mapam

Mapam was a political party in Israel and is one of the ancestors of the modern-day Meretz party.-History:Mapam was formed by a January 1948 merger of the Hashomer Hatzair Workers Party and Ahdut HaAvoda Poale Zion Movement. The party was originally Marxist-Zionist in its outlook and represented...

, he edited the Arabic language version of the party's newspaper, Al HaMishmar. In 1981

Israeli legislative election, 1981

Elections for the tenth Knesset were held in Israel on 30 June 1981. Despite last minute polls suggesting a victory for Shimon Peres's Alignment, Menachem Begin's Likud won by just one seat...

 he was elected to the Knesset on the Alignment

Alignment (political party)

The Alignment was an alliance of the major left-wing parties in Israel between the 1960s and 1990s. It was established in 1965 as an alliance of Mapai and Ahdut HaAvoda but was dissolved three years later when the two parties and Rafi formally merged into the Israeli Labor Party...

 list (an alliance of Mapam and the Labor Party. He was re-elected in 1984

Israeli legislative election, 1984

Elections for the eleventh Knesset were held in Israel on 23 July 1984. Voter turnout was 78.8%. The results saw the Alignment return to being the largest party in the Knesset, a status it had lost in 1977...

, shortly after which Mapam left the Alignment. On 12 July 1988 he left Mapam to join Hadash, due to disappointment with Mapam's policy towards the First Intifada

First Intifada

The First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories. The uprising began in the Jabalia refugee camp and quickly spread throughout Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem....

.

He lost his seat in the 1988 elections

Israeli legislative election, 1988

Elections for the twelfth Knesset were held in Israel on 1 November 1988. Voter turnout was 79.7%.-Results:1 Five members of the Likud left to form the Party for the Advancement of the Zionist Idea; after two returned, the party was renamed the New Liberal Party...

. After leaving politics, he managed and edited the Kul al-Arab

Kul al-Arab

Kul al-Arab is an Israeli Arabic-language weekly newspaper, founded in 1987. Based in Nazareth, the paper is Israel's most influential and widely-read Arabic-language periodical. It is also distributed in the West Bank. Kul al-Arab has 70 employees and a circulation of 38,000...

newspaper, and later ran a public relations firm.

He died in 1994 following a traffic collision.

External links