Walid Haj Yahia (, ; 1936 – 21 March 2015), also known as Walid Sadik, was an

Israeli Arab The Arab citizens of Israel form the country's largest ethnic minority. Their community mainly consists of former Palestinian Citizenship Order 1925, Mandatory Palestine citizens (and their descendants) who continued to inhabit the territory ...

politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Left Camp of Israel and Meretz.

Biography

Born in Tayibe during the Mandate era, Haj Yahia studied at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

, gaining a BA in sociology and political science. He worked as headmaster of a high school in Tayibe for 23 years, and was a member of the Teachers' Union's central committee. A member of the Left Camp of Israel, he was on the party's list for the 1977 elections. Although he missed out on a seat, he entered the Knesset on 13 February 1981 as a replacement for

Uri Avnery Uri Avnery (, also transliterated Uri Avneri; 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was a German-born Israeli writer, journalist, politician, and activist, who founded the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager and a vet ...

.Knesset Members of the Ninth Knesset
Knesset website However, he lost his seat in the

elections An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated ...

in June that year as the party failed to cross the electoral threshold. After the 1992 elections he returned to the Knesset on the Meretz list. On 4 August he was appointed Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development in Yitzhak Rabin's government, a role he also held under

Shimon Peres Shimon Peres ( ; ; born Szymon Perski, ; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician and statesman who served as the prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the president of Israel from 2007 t ...

' brief tenure as Prime Minister after Rabin's assassination. He was re-elected in

1996 1996 was designated as: * International Year for the Eradication of Poverty Events January * January 8 – A Zairean cargo plane crashes into a crowded market in the center of the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo ...

, but lost his seat in the 1999 elections.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Haj Yahia, Walid 1936 births 2015 deaths Date of birth missing Place of death missing 20th-century Israeli educators Arab members of the Knesset Arab people in Mandatory Palestine Deputy ministers of Israel Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Social Sciences alumni Israeli trade unionists Left Camp of Israel politicians Meretz politicians Members of the 9th Knesset (1977–1981) Members of the 13th Knesset (1992–1996) Members of the 14th Knesset (1996–1999) People from Tayibe