Ayoob Kara (Arabic: أيوب قرا, Hebrew: איוב קרא; born 12 March 1955) is an Israeli Druze politician.

[3] Kara opposed the Gaza disengagement plan championed by prime minister Ariel Sharon, and was almost ejected from Knesset with Michael Ratzon for "repeated disturbances".

[4] When Sharon announced plans to break from Likud, Kara refused to defect to Kadima in 2005 and criticized other MKs that did, including Shaul Mofaz.

He met with Hebron residents and criticized the demolition of a Jewish home there, calling Kadima chairman Tzipi Livni as "good for Hamas".

[7] Announcing his intention to run in the Likud primary for the 2009 elections, Kara called for unity between Druze and Jews, "to strengthen the Zionist connection...that has been damaged in recent years."

However, the Syrian embassy in Washington denied the meeting took place, as did a spokesman for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Druze farmers in the Golan Heights now import water from Syria and export thousands of tons of apples every year.

[21][22] Kara is hopeful that these "cracks in the great wall between Israel and Syria" will one day lead to real negotiations for peace.

[23] Kara has also called for mines to be removed from the Golan Heights, citing them as dangerous to travelers and not needed for Israel's defense.

The head of a South Sudan delegation to a February 2011 meeting of a new organization to develop Nigeria, Suleiman Alhariri, invited Kara to help begin setting up diplomatic relations.

[27] Kara led a delegation of Jewish, Muslim, Druze, and Christian religious leaders to discuss interfaith relations in Istanbul with TV show host Adnan Oktar.

"[36] At a meeting hosted by Turkish television personality Adnan Oktar, Kara stated that flotillas must carry humanitarian aid and not weapons.

[38] In April 2010, the MK made public that he had been approached by an Israeli woman of Persian Jewish origin, who had been contacted by an Iranian nuclear scientist seeking asylum in Israel.

Kara also stated that as a non-Jew, he appreciated Israel's freedom and democracy, and that were it not for the Jewish people, the entire region would look like Iran.

Kara also claims to have sent Ahmadinejad a letter in Persian, in which he expressed "the Israeli nation's desire for peace, and its willingness to defend itself".

[40] At the event, Kara criticized the Israeli government for inaction, and called Ahmadinejad "a catastrophe for the world" and said that Israel wants peace, not wars.

[35] He criticized the Oslo accords for giving "the criminal Palestinian leadership that was in Lebanon and Tunisia the legitimacy to be leaders in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza".

He noted that Arabs almost universally call for a restoration of the situation prior to the Six-Day War, when Gaza was part of Egypt.

[49] At the first International Regional Cooperation Conference in Tel Aviv, Kara said Israel should negotiate with businessmen rather than the Palestinian Authority leadership.

He criticizing it as not helpful to Israel or the PA[51] and said that the killings of four Israelis near Kiryat Arba shows that the freeze only serves as "appeasement" and is not working.

Speakers at the event called on Obama to stop pressuring Netanyahu and for the prime minister to stand his ground and uphold Jewish rights and values.

"[55] In 2011, however, he abstained from a vote brought by National Union MKs that would extend sovereignty to Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

[58] Ayoob Kara was part of a delegation of Israeli politicians who visited Poland at the invitation of the Polish Redemptorist priest Tadeusz Rydzyk in late 2017.

The purpose of the visit was to support Rydzyk's effort to draw greater attention to the Polish Righteous Among the Nations who saved Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust.

[60] On 26 October 2017, together with Knesset Deputy Speaker Yehiel Bar, Rabbi Dov Lipman (a former Knesset member of the Yesh Atid party) and other politicians, Kara attended a Radio Maryja commemoration ceremony in Torun devoted to the theme of "Remembrance and Hope" and attended by then Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło.