ZE'EVI, REHAVAM (1926–2001)

Israeli military and political figure, founder of the right-wing Moledet Party. He was born in 1926 in Jerusalem and joined the ranks of the Haganah when he was very young. Then, after the creation of the Israeli army, in 1948, he began a career in the military. From 1964 to 1968 he was Chief of the Department of Staff in the Israeli General staff. Between 1969 and 1972, he served as the Commander of Israel's Central Military District, where he was responsible for security in the West Bank. He retired in September 1973 but rejoined the army the following month at the beginning of the Yom Kippur War and served for several more months as the Chief of the Department of Staff.

Ze'evi next served as a consultant on combating terrorism to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and the following year became Rabin's advisor on intelligence. In March 1977 he resigned from this position, and in 1981 was appointed director of the Ha'aretz museum in Tel Aviv. In February, 1988, during the first Intifada in the occupied territories, he announced the creation of a new party, Moledet, which advocated the transfer of the Palestinian population to Arab countries. As a result of the elections of the following June, his party won two seats in the Knesset. Five months later, he was named minister without portfolio in the government of Yitzhak Shamir. In 1992, after publicly expressing his disagreement with the policies of the government on negotiations with the Palestinians, he resigned his ministerial post. Moledet joined with Herut and Tekumah to form the National Union group in 1999.

On 7 March 2001, after the election of Ariel Sharon to the post of prime minister, Rehavam Ze'evi became minister of tourism. On the following 17 October, having resigned from the government two days earlier, he was assassinated by a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) squad in reprisal for the August killing of the leader of that movement. He was the only major Israeli politician to die in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

SEE ALSO Haganah;Moledet;National Union;Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.