Rehavam Zeevi
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Rehavam (Gandhi) Zeevi (1926 - October 17 2001) was an Israeli general, politician and historian who founded the right-wing nationalist Moledet party. He was assassinated by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), becoming the only Israeli politician to be assassinated during the Al-Aqsa intifada.
Rehavam Zeevi was born in 1926 in Jerusalem. He joined the Palmach in 1942, and served in the Israeli Defence Forces after the creation of Israel. From 1964 to 1968 carried out the duties of the Chief of the Department of Staff in the Israeli General staff; in the next 5 years he has served as the Commander of the Central Military District (Hebrew: אלוף פיקוד המרכז). He retired in September 1973, only to rejoin the army at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War (October 6, 1973). He then served for several more months as the Chief of the Department of Staff. He finally retired, with the rank of major-general (אלוף) in 1974.
Immediately afterwards, he became Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's consultant on combatting terrorism. The following year, 1975, he was appointed as the prime minister's adviser on matters of intelligence. Zeevi resigned from this position in 1977, when Likud's Menachem Begin became prime minister. In 1981, Zeevi was appointed the director of the Israel Museum in Tel-Aviv. In 1987, he co-edited a series of books describing various aspects of the Land of Israel, based on artifacts from the museum.
In 1988, Zeevi established Moledet. His movement's platform consisted mainly in the transfer of Palestinian Arabs to the neighboring Arab countries. Zeevi was greatly disappointed by the Madrid Conference of 1991, and consequently withdrew from the Likud government of Yitzhak Shamir. He stayed in opposition for the following ten years. He disagreed strongly with the Avoda governments of 1992-1996 (led by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres) and 1999-2001 (Ehud Barak), however, he looked favourably on the Netanyahu government of 1996-1999 and supported it from the outside.
Zeevi made it quite clear that he supported forced transfer. He famously compared Palestinians to "lice" and "cancer". On different occasions, Zeevi also called for the invasion and conquest of Jordan and the resettlement of Palestinians into it1. It should be noted that Jordan had already signed a formal peace treaty with Israel at the time. More often than not, other Moledet party members had to follow up on these declarations with apologetic explanations that he was misunderstood and in fact Moledet supports only voluntary transfer.
In 1999, his Moledet movement united with Herut and Tkuma into a single fraction — the National Union. Following the election of Ariel Sharon in February 2001, Zeevi joined the coalition and was made the minister of tourism on March 7, 2001. On October 14 Zeevi declared that his party was to quit the government following the withdrawal of the Israeli Defence Forces from the Abu-Sneina neighborhood in Hebron. His resignation was to become active on October 17, 2001, at 11 a.m.
Zeevi was shot on Wednesday, October 17, 2001 by four gunmen. He was rushed to the Hadassah hospital where he died several minutes before 10 a.m. The PFLP militant group took responsibility for the killing and stated that it was in revenge for the assassination by Israel of Mustafa Ali Zibri, killed by Israel in August that year.
Links
- http://www.barrychamish.com/html/zeevi_shimon_peres.html Article by Barry Chamish on Zeevi's murder.
Footnotes
- Source: Suzanne Goldenberg, "Sharon's Guard Dog' Bares His Teeth; Minister In New Cabinet Wants All Palestinians Expelled", The Guardian (London), March 7, 2001. [1] (http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/manager/features/display_message.asp?mid=316)ar:رحبعام زئيفي