Abdel Rahman Zuabi (Arabic: عبدالرحمن زوابي) (born November 19, 1932 in Sulam) also Romanized as Abd-er-Rahman Zoabi) is a retired Israeli judge, who served as a deputy chief of the district court in Nazareth between 1996 and 2002. [1] He also served on the Israeli Supreme Court for nine months in 1999, making him the first Israeli Arab on the country's highest court.
Zuabi was born in northern Israel, in the village of Sulam near the city of Afula. He was the first Arab to graduate from the Tel Aviv School of Law and Economics (now a part of Tel Aviv University). He is a Muslim: He does not pray regularly, but does observe some Muslim customs, such as fasting during Ramadan and not drinking alcohol .
Zuabi moved to Nazareth, the largest city with a predominantly Arab population in the country, to start his judicial career with an appointment to the Nazareth District Court in the late 1970s. During his time on the court, he gained a reputation for particularly tough sentences passed on drug traffickers, including giving a 20-year sentence to one drug dealer, the longest drug-related sentence ever handed out by an Israeli court .
In 1994, he was appointed to the commission that investigated the Mosque of Abraham massacre in Hebron. On March 3, 1999, he was appointed by Ehud Barak's administration to the Israeli Supreme Court for a nine-month term, the first Arab to serve on the court.