Ishmael Khaldi

Ishmael Khaldi was born in 1971 in Khawaled

Khaldi was born in 1971 in Khawaled, a village near Haifa. He was the third of 11 children and lived in a Bedouin tent until age 8. He walked to school and tended sheep.

He holds a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Haifa. He also earned a master's degree in political science and international relations from Tel Aviv University.

He worked as a political analyst in the Ministry of Defense, the Israel Police and the IDF. He started a project that brought thousands of young Jews to Khawaled to learn about Bedouin culture. He said these meetings led him to diplomacy.

Khaldi joined the Foreign Ministry in 2004 and was posted to San Francisco in 2006. In 2009 he became policy advisor to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman. In 2010 he published a memoir, A Shepherd's Journey.

In 2020 he was named Israel's first Bedouin ambassador, to Eritrea. Eritrea never approved the appointment, so he served as a non-resident ambassador until the embassy was closed in 2022. In September 2022 he was chosen as ambassador to Turkmenistan.