When Ishmael Khalidi was a child he would walk several miles to school every day in the blazing sun or in the bitter cold. Since then he has traveled far, his journey taking him from a Galilee village that he describes as a 'backwater with no electricity or running water' to become Israel’s first – and so far only – Beduin diplomat.
Khalidi, formerly Israel’s deputy consul general in San Francisco, and now Arab affairs adviser to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, has a soft voice but a steely character. His chiseled features seem almost carved out of the rocky landscape of his youth, his penetrating gaze a mark of his indomitable will."
