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March 12, 1999/24 Adar 5759, Vol. 51, No. 24
First Israeli Arab seated on Supreme Court
GIL SEDAN
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - For the past 20 years, Abdel Rahman Zuabi served as a judge with the Nazareth District Court. He never hid his disappointment that he was not appointed president of that court, yet he often dreamed of getting a higher appointment - to Israel's Supreme Court.
That day came last week, when for the first time since the establishment of the Jewish state, an Israeli Arab took a seat on the nation's highest court.
The appointment of Zuabi, 66, is quite dramatic, given the often fragile relations between the Jewish and Arab sectors of Israeli society. But the move does not necessarily indicate that Israel's Arab minority is being integrated into mainstream Israeli society, according to at least one member of the panel responsible for Zuabi's appointment.
Zuabi's rise to the Supreme Court only highlights the lack of more Arab appointments to Israeli courts or in the broader civil service, says Amnon Rubinstein, a minister in the former Labor government and a former dean of the Tel Aviv University School of Law.
The sensitiveness surrounding the appointment is underscored by the fact that the idea was first publicly entertained, but never acted upon, 17 years ago. At that time, Zuabi was mentioned as a possible candidate.
Zuabi was born in the village of Sulam near the northern city of Afula. He was the first Arab graduate of the Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics, which was later incorporated into Tel Aviv University.
Contrary to most Arab public figures, Zuabi does not hide the fact that he is a secular Muslim. Although he does not pray regularly and has never made the traditional pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, he does fast during the month of Ramadan and refrains from drinking alcohol.
During his years with the Nazareth District Court, Zuabi earned the reputation of being particularly hard on criminals involved in drug use and trafficking. He once sentenced a drug dealer to 20 years in jail - the heaviest sentence ever handed down in Israel for a drug offense.
Zuabi first shot to national prominence when the then-Supreme Court president, Meir Shamgar, appointed Zuabi to serve on the state commission probing the 1994 Hebron massacre, in which Jewish settler Dr. Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Palestinians during prayers at Hebron's Tomb of the Patriarchs. Ironically, Zuabi's first appearances on the Supreme Court last week coincided with the fifth anniversary of the Hebron slayings on the Jewish calendar.
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