Basel Ghattas
Israeli politician
Basel Ghattas (Arabic: باسل غطاس, Hebrew: באסל גטאס; born 23 March 1956) is an Israeli Arab politician. A member of Balad, he served as a member of the Knesset for Balad and the Joint List from 2015 until 2017. In December 2016, he was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and arrested after he was caught on video providing convicted Palestinian prisoners with cell phones and SIM cards. He served a two-year prison term over the crime.
Biography
A Christian Arab, Ghattas originates from Rameh. During high school he established the National Committee of Arab High School students with his cousin, Azmi Bishara. During his time at university he also established Arab student groups.
After finishing university he opened an engineering firm in Rameh. At the age of 22 he was elected Deputy Leader of the town council as a member of Rakah, which later became Maki. He was ejected from the party in 1990 after challenging its pro-Soviet stance.
“Basel Ghattas” enters the record as israeli politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Basel, Ghattas and Israeli can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Basel Ghattas” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Basel, Ghattas and Israeli provides the most credible route into that argument.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4300370. VIAF identifies the subject as 5146150943154626760008. The Library of Congress control number is n2018053161. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 2015, 2017 and 2016.
Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Basel Ghattas”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Basel Ghattas primary sources, Basel Ghattas archive and Basel research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Basel Ghattas”?
- Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Basel Ghattas” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.