Iman Khatib-Yassin

Khatib-Yassin was born on October 23, 1964, in Arraba.[1][5] She came from a farming family in the Beit Netofa Valley and lives in Kfar Yafia, an Arab village in the Galilee.[4][1]

She holds a bachelor's degree in social work from the University of Haifa and a master's degree in social work from Tel Aviv University, specializing in women and gender.[5] She is married and the mother of four children.[1]

A formative political memory came from the events of Land Day on March 30, 1976 — demonstrations against plans to confiscate land in the Galilee during which security forces killed six Arab Israelis.[6] Khatib-Yassin has said the events unfolded in front of her, that one of those killed was her cousin, and that Land Day constituted her first political memory.[6]

Before entering politics, Khatib-Yassin accumulated approximately three decades of community and social work.[5] She established and directed the first community center in the Kfar Yafia area, a role she held for fourteen years.[4] She also established and managed a center for girls in distress in Nazareth for nine years and worked in prisoner rehabilitation.[1]

Her professional experience spanned local authorities, welfare services, and community organizations.[5] She described herself as a feminist and stated that her political priorities grew directly from this fieldwork: addressing violence in Arab society — particularly against women — creating employment suited to Arab women's abilities and environments, and advancing children's right to an empowering education.[4]

Within Ra'am, she served as deputy leader of the shura council, the body that determines party policy.[7]

Khatib-Yassin first sought a Knesset seat on the Ra'am-Balad slate in April 2019 and again on the Joint List slate in September 2019, without success on either occasion.[6] In a Ra'am internal primary ahead of the March 2020 election, she placed fourth on the party's candidate list.[8] A contemporary profile reported that she defeated seven male candidates in the contest.[4]

Because Ra'am ran as part of the broader Joint List alliance in March 2020, she appeared at position 15 on that combined slate. The Joint List won 15 seats, bringing her into the 23rd Knesset as the first woman to represent Ra'am and the first hijab-wearing woman to serve in the Knesset.[2][3]

Ahead of the March 2021 election, Ra'am split from the Joint List and ran independently. Khatib-Yassin was placed fifth on Ra'am's slate, but the party won only four seats, leaving her outside the Knesset.[7] She returned to the legislature in August 2021, when Ra'am MK Saeed al-Harumi died and she moved up from fifth place to fill his seat.[3]

In the November 2022 election, she was listed fourth on Ra'am's slate. The party won five seats with 193,916 votes — 4.07% of the total — returning her to the 25th Knesset.[9] Before the 2020 election, she had also been tasked with mobilizing Bedouin women in the Negev, organizing conferences and living-room discussions to encourage women to vote. Official vote totals in Negev Bedouin communities rose from 57,000 in September 2019 to 68,000 in March 2020, although the data did not break the results down by gender.[4]

For the election scheduled for October 27, 2026, she was listed fifth on Ra'am's slate.[10]

During her Knesset service, Khatib-Yassin sat on the Finance, Economic Affairs, Education, Health, Children's Rights, and Coronavirus committees.[5] She chaired a special committee on integrating Arab teachers into the education system, promoted public transportation in Arab communities, and established a parliamentary lobby to combat cancer and encourage early detection.[5]

In January 2022, she joined fellow United Arab List parliamentarian Mazen Ghanaim in opposing a government forestation initiative in the Negev, which UAL members viewed as potentially displacing Bedouin residents of communities that lacked formal recognition.[11] The government temporarily halted the tree-planting work while seeking a longer-term solution.[11]

On questions of political identity, Khatib-Yassin has said she opposes defining Israel as a Jewish state and supports full civil and democratic rights for Arab citizens.[4] She describes her national identity as Palestinian-Arab while identifying herself as a citizen of Israel.[4]

Ra'am was founded in 1996 and has operated independently from other Arab-led parties since 2021. That year, it became the first independent Arab party to join an Israeli governing coalition.[10] The coalition collapsed after just over a year, and the Knesset voted to dissolve itself on June 30, 2022.[9]

Khatib-Yassin was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010 and subsequently with pancreatic cancer.[12] She returned to her Knesset work after undergoing treatment and sought additional financial support for cancer survivors, including six months of assistance following the completion of treatment.[12]

Khatib-Yassin's election in 2020 marked two parliamentary firsts: she became the first hijab-wearing woman to serve in the Knesset and the first woman to represent Ra'am there.[2][3] Her political career also coincided with Ra'am's transition from participation in broader Arab electoral alliances to independent coalition politics, including its entry into government in 2021.[10]

On November 5, 2023, Khatib-Yassin told the Knesset Channel that footage of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack did not show babies being slaughtered or women being raped.[13] She had not personally watched the footage and based her remarks on accounts from party members who had seen it.[13] She also stated that what occurred on October 7 was inhumane, contrary to Islam even in wartime, and that nothing justified the atrocities.[14]

Ra'am leader Mansour Abbas publicly demanded she resign. Khatib-Yassin did not resign and issued an apology, saying she had made a mistake and had not intended to deny the horrific acts committed during the massacre.[13][15] Abbas rejected the apology and maintained his demand for her resignation.[13]

The Knesset Ethics Committee determined that her remarks denied the massacre and abuse and seriously harmed public trust in the Knesset. It barred her from Knesset activity for one month and docked two weeks of her salary.[15] The ADL included her remarks in a report documenting denialism about the scope of the October 7 massacre.[16] After the Ethics Committee issued its ruling, she was present at a subsequent screening of the footage at the Knesset.[17]