Tibi now wants a seat on the Knesset’s powerful and secretive foreign-affairs and defense committee. He reckons the prime minister owes his Balad party big time. Party leader Azmi Bishara pulled out of the prime ministerial race and threw his support to Barak on election eve.
Tibi grew up five minutes from Barak’s home, speaks fluent Hebrew and is an effective debater on the country’s raucous political talk shows. “That is why they say I am the most dangerous enemy of Israeli society,” says Tibi, “because I penetrate every house.” Including, now, the Knesset.
