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Rehavam (Gandhi) Zeevi (רחבעם זאבי-גנדי)(June 20, 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 he carried out the duties of the Chief of the Department of Staff in the Israeli General staff. For the next 5 years he 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 it. 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 Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February 2001, Zeevi joined the governing coalition and was made the minister of tourism on March 7, 2001. On October 14 Zeevi declared that his party would 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 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine took responsibility for the killing and stated that it was in revenge for the assassination by Israel of Abu Ali Mustafa, killed by Israel in August that year.
Obscured Legacy
Zeevi's political views have since the 1980s overshadowed both his military career and personality. One of the most bizarre tidbits was the fact that he once arrived in a toga with a lion to a party during his military service for the festival of Purim, earning his nickname since then, Ghandi, ironic for a person considered one of the least conciliatory in Israeli-Arab relations.
Zeevi's most bitter political enemy was Likud Knesset Member and one-time Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert, though their mutual hatred had no connection with their views on state policy. In 1975, the young Olmert called a press conference declaring that he had a list of organize crime figures in the capital that he would recommend for investigation. One was a businessman who had been under Zeevi's command during his military service named Betzalel Mizrahi. The allegations soon included a literal accusation of Zeevi's protection of Mizrahi and other criminals. Zeevi soon sued Olmert for libel, an action that scared the young legislator whose allegations had been baseless and were calculated to increase press exposure so as to heighten his prestige in the Likud. Coincidentally, today four years after Zeevi's death Olmert is Finance Minister and second-in-command to Premier Ariel Sharon, though his name has been tied to far more serious public corruption scandals.
As a soldier, Zeevi's name was connected to the era in the 1960's-70's known as HaMerdafim (The Incursions/Pursuances). As Commander of the Central Military District, Zeevi was tasked with defending the new Jordan Valley settlements from PLO guerrilla actions and pacifying the newly occupied Arab-Palestinian population. This was expected despite massive buildups in the Southern Command along the Suez Canal and throughout the Sinai Peninsula, as well as in the Northern Command on the Golan Heights and Mount Hermon. Zeevi formed the elite Sayeret Kharuv in the late 1960's, an anti-terror company sized batallion. The success of the effort earned Zeevi widespread praise. At the time IDF Chief of Staff Chaim Bar-Lev had begun to focus IDF manpower and budget on armoured tank units, a factor that made Zeevi's achievement all the more extraordinary due to the massive cutbacks in infantry forces (this disastrous move by Bar-Lev, along with his placement of defensive positions too close to the Suez Canal and insufficient manning of Golan Heights defense posts aided Arab forces in October 1973 in causing the following initial successes: huge tank casualties, incursions; and in the Golan Heights capture of highly developed radar and technological equipment.)
Moledet never realized the vision Zeevi had for it. Instead of drawing masses away from the centre-right Likud, Zeevi's party was seen as just another military personality party, just as Shlomzion (Ariel Sharon), Telem (Moshe Dayan), and Yahad (Ezer Weizman) before it, and Tzomet (Raful Eitan) and countless others after it. The factionalization of Israel's extreme right as a result of small ideological differences was not helped by Zeevi's defection from Tehiya.
To this day, Zeevi is controversial, and efforts to define him to young history students are the subject of fierce arguments in the educational establishment. His critics call him a bigoted military strongman who deserved to be vilified. Apologists argue that unlike most soldiers turned politicians in Israel across the spectrum,Zeevi was able to remain uncorrupted, and legal processes proved so. Complicating the argument is the fact that he was murdered while still serving as a minister and legislator. Ghandi's Road highway in the Jordan Valley is named after him in honour of his service to the region, an honour resented by Palestinian and Bedouin residents of the Valley.
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.
Source: Avneri, Ariel.The Route. Tel Aviv, 1992. An indepth account of the gradual corruption of Israeli governments after the 1977 electoral revolution, this includes details of the Zeevi-Olmert fued.
External links
- PM Ariel Sharon's remarks on the 3rd Anniversary of the Assassination of Minister Rehavam Ze'evi z"l an adress before the Knesset on October 19, 2004
- Knesset commemorates Ze'evi by Sheera Claire Frenkel and Ron Littman, published in the Jerusalem Post November 2, 2005