Uri Davis

Uri Davis was born in 1943 in Jerusalem

Uri Davis was born in Jerusalem in 1943 and grew up in Kfar Shmaryahu. His parents came to Mandatory Palestine in the Fifth Aliyah. His mother Blanka was from Czechoslovakia and his father Joseph from the United Kingdom.

From 1961 to 1963 he worked on Kibbutz Erez instead of military service. In 1964 he protested land expropriations in the Galilee and was tried by a military court for entering a closed area. He spent about half a year in prison, which drew public protests.

He earned a BA in Philosophy and Arabic in 1968 and an MA in Philosophy in 1970 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At The New School for Social Research in New York he earned an MA in 1973 and a PhD in 1976, both in Anthropology. He then taught Peace Studies at the University of Bradford.

Davis joined Fatah in 1984 and wrote books describing Israel as an apartheid state, including Israel: An Apartheid State in 1987. In 2009 he was elected to Fatah's Revolutionary Council and was re-elected in 2016. He served as Vice-Chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights.

In 2006 he met Miyassar Abu Ali, and in 2008 he converted to Islam and they married in Ramallah. The couple lives in Sakhnin.