Azmi Bishara

Azmi Bishara was born in 1956 in Nazareth

Bishara was born in Nazareth in 1956 to a Christian Arab family. His mother was a teacher, and his father worked for the health ministry and was a communist activist. In 1974, at his Baptist high school, he founded the National Committee of Arab High School Students.

At the University of Haifa he set up the Arab Students Union. He studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem from 1977 to 1980. He then earned a PhD in philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin.

In 1986 he joined the faculty of Birzeit University, and he headed its philosophy department from 1994 to 1996. He also worked as a researcher at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute.

In 1995 he founded Balad, and in 1996 he was elected to the Knesset. He ran for prime minister in 1999 but withdrew just before the vote. In 2003 the Central Elections Committee disqualified him, and the Supreme Court reversed this by a 7 to 4 vote.

After visits to Syria and Lebanon, police investigated him on suspicion of aiding the enemy during the Second Lebanon War, contact with a foreign agent and money laundering. He denied the suspicions, resigned from the Knesset in 2007 and stayed abroad, saying he would not get a fair trial. He settled in Qatar, where he heads the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, and in 2017 he left direct political work.