Abdel Rahman Zuabi

Abdel Rahman Zuabi ( ) (born November 19, 1932; also Romanized as Abd-er-Rahman Zoabi ) is an Israeli judge . He served on the Israeli Supreme Court for nine months in 1999, making him the first Israeli Arab on the country's highest court. Zuabi was born in northern Israel, in the village of Sulam near the city of Afula . He was the first Arab to graduate from the Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics (now a part of Tel Aviv University ). He is a secular Muslim : He does not pray regularly, but does observe some Muslim customs, such as fasting during Ramadan and not drinking alcohol . Zuabi moved to Nazareth , the largest city with a predominantly Arab population in the country, to start his judicial career with an appointment to the Nazareth District Court in the late 1970s. During his time on the court, he gained a reputation for particularly tough sentences passed on drug traffickers , including giving a 20-year sentence to one drug dealer, the longest drug-related sentence ever handed out by an Israeli court. In 1994, he was on the commission that investigated the Mosque of Abraham massacre in Hebron . Since the victims of the massacre were Arabs, it was felt necessary that there be an Arab on the commission. Zuabi's well-respected legal career, combined with his self-identification as a "proud Israeli", made him a choice acceptable to Israel's majority Jewish population. On March 3, 1999, he was appointed by Ehud Barak 's administration to the Israeli Supreme Court for a nine-month term, the first Arab to serve on the court.¹