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Si tu ne parles pas, tu meurs. Si tu parles, tu meurs. Parles et meurs !
Par Davidi
Tawfik Toubi est le dernier député survivant de la première Knesset. Cet Arabe chrétien fut député du parti communiste pendant quarante-et-un ans, jusqu’en 1990.
Tawfik Toubi naît à l’époque de la Palestine mandataire dans une famille chrétienne orthodoxe arabe. Il est éduqué à l’École du Mont-Sion et rejoint le parti communiste en 1941. C’est l’un des fondateurs ensuite de la ligue de libération nationale.
Tawfik Toubi est élu pour la première fois à la première Knesset de 1949. Il y siège jusq’à sa démission en juillet 1990. Il est réélu en 1951, 1955, 1959, 1961, 1977, 1981, 1984 et 1988. Il est député du Maki (parti communiste israélien). En 1976, il devient secrétaire général du nouveau parti Hadash, issu du Rakah et de partis de gauche. Il est élu député de ce parti de 1977, jusqu’à sa démission en 1990, date à laquelle il est remplacé par Tamar Gozansky.
Tawfik Toubi a mené parallèlement une carrière d’éditeur et de journaliste au journal arabe communiste Al Ittihad.
Ce fut l’un des rares députés à protester contre le massacre de Kafr Qassem, en octobre 1956. Il est considéré comme un opposant de gauche à toute forme de racisme. Il a aussi demandé le retour des habitants d’Al-Birwah expulsés en 1948 (ce que Ben-Gourion refusa) et ensuite après la Guerre des Six-Jours, celui des habitants du village de Yalo, demande effectuée auprès de Moshé Dayan. Cela fut aussi refusé.
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Veteran communist leader Tawfik Toubi is dead
Veteran Communist Party of Israeli (CPI) leader Tawfik Toubi dead today (March 12, 2011). His funereal is to take place tomorrow, Sunday, in Haifa.
Toubi was born in Haifa, in 1922, and was educated at the Mount Zion School in Jerusalem. He joined the Palestine Communist Party in 1941 and later was one of the founders of the League for National Liberation.
He remains in Haifa during the Naqba and becomes a defender of the Arab-Palestinian population in the Northern city. He was elected to the Israeli parliament (Knesset) in 1949 as a leading member of the CPI. He was re-elected to the Knesset for more than 40 years. Beginning in the 1950’s, Toubi was a member of the presidium of the Israeli Committee for Peace and the presidium of the World Peace Council.
In 1976 he was elected as Deputy Secretary General of Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality), serving as its Secretary General from 1989 – 1993. Following his retirement, he continued to be the editor and publisher of the daily Communist Party’s newspaper in Arabic “Al Ittihad".
Toubi is remembered as the exposer (along with Meir Vilner) of the Kafr Qassem massacre of Palestinians in 1956. Toubi raised several times the issue of the right or return for the Palestinian refuges. First of all after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, he demanded that the inhabitants of al-Birwa be allowed to return to their homes, a request refused by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. After the 1967 war and occupation of the Palestinian territories he requested of Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that the inhabitants of Yallo be allowed to return to their homes. The requested that was similarly denied. Toubi was the last surviving member of the first Knesset.
"Tawfik’s death is a great loss to the Communist Party and to the Palestinian-Arab public," said CPI Secretary General, Mohammed Nafa’h. "He was a diligent militant and a brilliant and modest parliamentarian ; a man of peace, merit and honor. He left behind him a rich and respected legacy."
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