Uriel “Uri” Davis is the first Jew to become a member of the Revolutionary Council since it was established in 1958.
Uri is an academic and activist who says that he works on civil rights in Israel, Palestinian National Authority and the Middle East. Davis has served as Vice-Chairman of the Israeli League for Human and Civil Rights and as lecturer in Peace Studies at the University of Bradford. Davis describes himself as an “anti-Zionist Palestinian Hebrew, born in Jerusalem in 1943, and a dual citizen of the State of Israel and the UK.
Davis, who in the 1980s abandoned his Israeli citizenship in protest over Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and later received Palestinian citizenship, was the only non-Arab to run for a seat in the Revolutionary Council, Fatah’s legislative body.
When his name was announced as number 31 on the list of winners, members in the auditorium applauded long and loud.
Davis, was among more than 600 Fatah activists who competed for 80 seats of the council.
Author of the books “Israel: An Apartheid State,” published in 1987 and “Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within,” published in 2004, Davis prefers to identify himself as a Palestinian Hebrew.
Speaking perfect Arabic, he teaches Jewish studies at the Palestinian al-Quds University in Abu Dis, located just outside an eight-meter high concrete wall Israel has built around occupied East Jerusalem to separate it from its West Bank environs.
Davis met Miyassar Abu Ali, a Palestinian, in Ramallah in 2006. They signed their Certificate of Marriage (‘Aqd al-Zawaj) there in 2008, after Davis converted to Islam.
Addressing the winners, Mr. Abbas declared Fatah’s sixth congress “a new launch for Fatah,” saying: “We have great work ahead of us.”
He urged the members to work toward “reviving Fatah, which today more than any previous time needs the efforts of its young members to lead the movement into the future.”
[More information about Uri Davis](http://www.uridavis.info/)
