Arab Orthodox were leaders of the Palestinian National Movement, formed the leadership of the Arab portion of the Communist Party of Israel and later Rakah and edited the leading newspapers in Mandatory Palestine including Filastin, edited by the Isa brothers (Daoud Isa), and Al Carmel which was edited by Najib Nassar.
In 1976, Arafat and Kaddoumi met with Meir Vilner and Tawfik Toubi, heads of Rakah (New Communist List), which had developed after the 1965 split in the Israeli Communist Party, and from which Hadash eventually developed.
Declining an offer by the Israeli Communist Party Rakah to be sent to do cinema studies in Poland, Sand graduated with a BA in History from Tel Aviv University in 1975.
Rakah |
His Ph.D., obtained in 1986 also at the Aranne School of History at Tel Aviv University, was titled "Between Communism and Arab Nationalism: Rakah and the Arab Minority in Israel (1965- 1973)."
In 1976, he was elected secretary general of the new Hadash party, an alliance of Rakah and several other smaller left-wing and Israeli Arab parties, and was elected to the Knesset on Hadash's list in 1977, 1981, 1984 and 1988, before resigning from the Knesset in July 1990 and being replaced by Tamar Gozansky.
In 1984, he produced Israeli singer Nurit Galron's album "One Soft Touch" (נגיעה אחת רכה "Negi'aa Achat Rakah").