SHALOM, SILVAN

SHALOM, SILVAN (1958– ), Israeli politician, member of the Knesset since the Thirteenth Knesset. Shalom was born in Gebs, Tunis, and was brought by his parents to Israel the following year. As a student at Ben-Gurion University, he served as chairman of the Students Association there on behalf of the Likud and as deputy chairman of the National Students Association. He graduated from Ben-Gurion University in economics and accounting in 1983, and worked for a period as a journalist. He received an M.A. in Public Administration in 1991 and a law degree in 1996, both from Tel Aviv University.

Shalom served as director general of the ministry of energy and infrastructure in 1989–90, when Moshe *Shaḥal of the Labor Party was minister, and as chairman of the board of directors of the Electricity Corporation in 1990–92.

Shalom was first elected to the Thirteenth Knesset on the Likud list in 1992, serving on numerous Knesset Committees. In the Fourteenth Knesset he served as chairman of the coalition in the Finance Committee, was chairman of the lobby for the advancement of soccer and of the lobby for encouraging industry in Samaria. From July 1997 to July 1998 he served as deputy minister of defense, under Yitzhak Mordechai. In July 1998 he was appointed by Prime Minister Binyamin *Netanyahu as minister of science and technology. In the government formed by Ariel *Sharon in 2001 Shalom was appointed deputy prime minister and minister of finance. When Sharon formed his second government after the elections to the Sixteenth Knesset in 2003, the Ministry of Finance was given to Binyamin Netanyahu and Shalom was appointed deputy prime minister and minister for foreign affairs. Shalom objected to Sharon's plan for disengagement from the Gaza Strip and Northern Samaria, but accepted the position of the majority, and supported it.

In December 2005 he ran for the chairmanship of the Likud after Sharon left it to form the Kadimah Party, and came in second to Netanyahu.

[Susan Hattis Rolef (2^nd ed.)]