Seif el-Din el-Zoubi

Seif el-Din el-Zoubi (1913 – 26 June 1986) was an Israeli Arab politician.

Biography
El-Zoubi was born in 1913 in Nazareth, where he attended high school. During the British Mandate of Palestine, he was active in the Haganah and later received the Fighter of the State Decoration. During the Israeli War of Independence, he convinced the Zoubi family to throw their weight behind the Jewish side and not for Fawzi al-Qawuqji's Arab Liberation Army.

In 1949 he was elected to the Knesset as the leader of the Democratic List of Nazareth which was a bloc party of Mapai. During this time he was a member of the Knesset Internal Affairs Committee. He was re-elected in 1951 on the Democratic List for Israeli Arabs, and again in 1955. During this time he served on the Knesset house committee. He resigned from the Knesset on 13 February 1956. In 1959, he became mayor of Nazareth, the city's first Muslim mayor in decades, and held the post until 1965, when he returned to the Knesset on the Progress and Development list, which briefly merged into Cooperation and Development before regaining its independence. He was elected to the Knesset in 1969, and was appointed Deputy Speaker of the Knesset. In 1971, el-Zoubi became mayor of Nazareth again, holding the post until 1974.

El-Zoubi was re-elected in 1973. In 1974, Progress and Development merged into Alignment, before leaving it and forming the United Arab List. He was re-elected for a final time on the United Arab List slate in 1977, before resigning his seat on 3 April 1979. He died in 1986.

Haneen Zoabi, who served as a Member of the Knesset for the Joint List, is a relative.

Controversy
According to Israeli historian Ori Stendel, el-Zoubi used his ties with the Israeli establishment to compensate for the decline of his political power within the Zubia clan. Historian Hillel Cohen wrote that el-Zoubi was "upgraded" by Mapai in exchange for relinquishing national demands and legitimizing land confiscations. Yitzhak Laor described his conduct as tantamount to taking political bribery.

Publications

 * Autobiography: ”Eyewitness” (شاهد عيان, 1987)