28.02.2011                      24.Adar l, 5771

Feature:

MK Ahmed Tibi: Israeli Arab leaders who visited Libya didn't back Gadhafi

Tibi was among initiators of delegation of Higher Arab Monitoring Committee to Libya in 2010, which is now drawing criticism due to Libya's violent crackdown on anti-government protesters.

MK Ahmed Tibi of the United Arab List-Ta'al was among the initiators of the delegation of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee to Libya last April. The recent unrest in Libya has reignited criticism of the Arab Knesset members who participated in the visit, and of the underlying objectives of the visit. Tibi speaks out here against the critics, stresses that Jewish MKs also wanted to go along to Libya at the time, and insists the trip should be judged today by the intentions and aims back then – not by what has happened a year later, or in terms of current attitudes toward what he calls the "tahrirization" going on in the Arab world….