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Bishara studied at the Marxist Humboldt University in East Berlin. He was a senior lecturer and head of the philosophy department at Bir-Zeit University, and a senior researcher at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem.

He began his political activity in 1974 as chairman of the National Committee of Arab High School Pupils and was active in setting up the Arab Student Committees and Campus Lands Defense Committee in 1976 against the Israeli occupation of the territories.

One of the founders of the National Democratic Alliance-Balad, which he heads, Bishara was elected to the 14th Knesset in 1996 on the Hadash list. He defines himself as a humanist, democrat, liberal, and neo-Nasserist and advocates turning Israel into a secular, democratic state with cultural autonomy for its Arab citizens. He favors a bi-national solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

Bishara first visited Syria at the end of 1997 and met with Deputy President Abdel Khalim Khaddam and Foreign Minister Farouk Sharaa. He visited Syria again in 1998 and met with President Hafez Assad. In the elections to the 15th Knesset he will run on a list with the Arab Democratic Party.

He received a kidney transplant in March 1997 at Hadassah-University Hospital in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem and is a spokesmen for the National Association of Dialysis Patients in Israel.

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Links in this section:

Ehud Barak      Fact File      In-depth Profile      Interview Ze'ev Binyamin Begin      Fact File      In-depth Profile      Interview Azmi Bishara      Fact File      In-depth Profile      Interview

Yitzhak Mordechai      Fact File      In-depth Profile      Interview Binyamin Netanyahu      Fact File      In-depth Profile      Interview