Ezer Weizmann
(also:Eser WeizmannandEzer Weizman,Hebrew עזר ויצמן; born on June 15, 1924 in Tel Aviv ; died on April 24, 2005 in Caesarea ) was the seventh Israeli President (1993–2000). His predecessor in office was Chaim Herzog (1983–1993), his successor Moshe Katzav (2000–2007).
Ezer Weizman was a nephew of the first Israeli President Chaim Weizmann .
Military career
Ezer Weizman was a successful fighter pilot . He received his training in the British Army , which he joined in 1942 to support the British against Germany in World War II . He initially served as a truck driver in the Libyan desert until he joined the British Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1943 and attended a flight school in Rhodesia. In early 1944 he served in the RAF in India . Between 1944 and 1946 he was a member of the Etzel ( Irgun ) and in the Israeli War of Independence of 1948 he was a pilot of the Hagana , where he flew one of the initial four Israeli aircraft. As the commander of the Negev air wing near Nir-Am, he led the air strikes against Egyptian troops near Ashdod . In the operation Balak 1948 he flew type aircraft Avia S-199 from Czechoslovakia to Israel to the newly formed Israeli Air Force to equip. After the establishment of the State of Israel , Weizman became a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces .
In addition to the Czechoslovak Avia S-199 - a replica of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 - Weizmann also learned to fly the Supermarine Spitfire . At the end of his life he owned his own fighter plane - a black Spitfire - which is on display in the Israeli Air Force Museum on the military airfield Chazerim near Be'er Sheva, ready to fly. In 1951 he attended the RAF Air Force Academy near Andover in England. On his return he became the commander of the first Israeli air force unit, the Gloster meteor jets. Between 1958 and 1966 he served as commander of the Israeli Air Force and later was deputy chief of staff. He won great recognition in Israel for his contribution to Israel's victory in the Six Day War , in which the Israeli air force destroyed the Egyptian military machines on the ground in the first hours of the morning of June 5, 1967, thus ensuring Israeli air superiority in the Sinai theater of war.
When it became clear to him in 1969 that he would not be appointed Chief of Staff, he resigned from active service in the Air Force and then became Minister of Transport in the first unity government of Israel under Levi Eshkol .
Political career
After retiring from the army, Weizman became a member of the Gahal party ("Gush Herut Liberalim", which later became Likud ) and served as Minister of Transport in Levi Eshkol's government of national unity from 1967 until his party left the coalition in 1970. Then Weizman was manager of a shipping company. He led Gahal- Cherut until 1972 and then left the conservative Likud and rejoined it in 1976. Weizman was the campaign leader in the great election victory of the Cherut in 1977, the right-wing "turning point". Since 1977 he has been Minister of Defense in the Menachem Begins government . Weizman advocated “absolutely secure borders” for Israel. During this time (1978) Israel launched Operation Litani against the PLO in southern Lebanon and marched into southern Lebanon. Weizmann also initiated the development of the IAI Lavi fighter aircraft .
When Egypt's President Anwar as-Sadat visited Israel, Weizman was initially suspicious and feared an attack by Egypt against the entire Israeli leadership at the airport. Therefore, he put the entire Israeli army on high alert. Over time, Weizman became friends with Sadat and the Egyptian Minister of War Muhammad Abd'al-Ghani al-Gamassi and became the great leader of the compromise and the engine of the peace negotiations with Egypt. Weizman was one of the proponents of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty with Anwar as-Sadat. During this time he became a pacifist . In connection with the re-establishment of Israeli settlements and the occupation policy of the West Bank, Weizman stood in opposition to Begin and Sharon. He came more and more into conflict with the right wing of the Likud. Finally, he had to leave Likud in 1980. Because of cuts in the military budget, Weizman resigned as Minister of Defense in 1980. His successor was Ariel Sharon , who later, as housing minister , targeted the establishment of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, especially around Jerusalem . Weizman planned to found a new party with Moshe Dajan and was therefore expelled from the Cherut. Weizman was a businessman between 1980 and 1984. In 1984 Weizmann founded a new party, the Yachad , which immediately received three seats in the eleventh Knesset . Weizman (initially as minister without portfolio , from 1985 as minister responsible for relations with the Arab states) and the Yachad were part of the government of national unity with the built-in rotation between Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir , in which Yachad played the role of tip the scales took over. In October 1986, Weizmann's Yachad party merged with the Israeli Labor Party after it lost its ally Mapam and Education Minister Jossi Sarid .
In 1988, Weizman became Minister of Science under Begin's successor, Yitzhak Shamir, but was dismissed from the cabinet because of a meeting with Arafat . He resigned his Knesset mandate in 1992.
Presidential office
On March 24, Weizman won the election for Israeli president with a majority of 66 to 53 votes against Dov Shilansky , the Likud candidate.
Weizman took office on May 13, 1993 as the seventh President of Israel. His political statements earned him a lot of criticism, but did nothing to change broad public support.
Even though Weizman had a reputation for being a “male chauvinist ” (he once addressed a journalist as “Mejdele” ), his immediate and direct manner made him very popular with the people. He interfered very often in politics and remained arguable and unpredictable to the end. When the elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to thwart the peace process at all costs in 1996, Weizman invited Jassir Arafat for a “private visit ” to lunch at his house in the Caesarea residential area . This ultimately forced Netanyahu to sign the Wye deal with Arafat and evacuate Hebron . Weizman supported the withdrawal from the Golan Heights in exchange for peace with Syria and was therefore criticized by the right-wing and conservative parties.
During his tenure, Israel suffered from attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas . A custom introduced by Weizman was to visit families of the victims. Countless spontaneous visits to families of victims of terrorism and the relatives of soldiers killed were part of the popular president's administration. He also visited the Palestinian victims of the Jewish terrorist Baruch Goldstein after his massacre in Hebron in 1994 on Palestinians at the Abraham Mosque .
Weizman was the first Israeli president to visit the German Bundestag , where he spoke in Hebrew . His repeated recommendations to the German Jews to emigrate to Israel caused displeasure in many places. The Central Council of Jews in Germany also had problems with these words. Weizmann's attitude towards peace remained contradictory. After the right-wing Alex Goldfarb had approved the ratification of the Oslo II Agreement in the Knesset on October 5, 1995 - his vote enabled the agreement to be adopted with a majority of one vote - Weizmann insulted him for this: “The agreement is not an agreement . It passed the Knesset by a majority of one and this would not have succeeded if not for one MK and his Mitsubishi " (German: The agreement is not an agreement. It was passed by the Knesset with a majority of one vote and would not have been successful, if it hadn't been for a ministerial post and a Mitsubishi). This statement by Weizmann was heavily criticized because, on the one hand, he interfered too much as President and also disregarded the respect for the majority in Parliament. Weizman's chancellery boss Arie Schomer stated that “a majority of one vote is also a majority” and that the president is committed to the agreement with the Palestinians. He gave a speech at the grave of the murdered Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995 and engaged in innumerable skirmishes with Prime Minister Netanyahu from 1996 onwards.
On March 4, 1998, Ezer Weizman was re-elected for a second term. In 1999, Weizmann also met Nayef Hawatmeh , the head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine , for talks. At the end of 1999, newspapers reported that a French businessman friend named Édouard Saroussi made high payments to Weizman without informing the government agencies responsible. It led to judicial investigations against the president, which were discontinued. Due to the following criticism, Weizman had to resign on July 13, 2000. Moshe Katzav followed him as president.
retirement
Weizman has stayed noticeably out of politics in recent years. Many top Israeli politicians paid tribute to him, who had become something of an Israeli myth. Opposition politician Jossi Sarid said of Ezer Weizman that it is Weizman's ability to transform himself politically that he appreciates so much . Weizman died in his home in Caesarea. On Tuesday, April 26, 2005 at 9:00 am, Ezer Weizman was laid out in the Or Akiva Community Center , where he was buried next to his son Saul at 5:00 pm that same day. Almost all Israeli newspapers carried the news of Weizman's death in a large-format photomontage: his legendary black Spitfire in the sky above an Israeli flag at half mast .
family
Weizman was married to Reuma Schwartz and had two children: Saul and Michal. Saul was badly wounded in the war of attrition on the Suez Canal . Saul and his wife died in a traffic accident in 1991 and are buried in Or Akiva.
Awards (excerpt)
Web links
- Literature by and about Ezer Weizmann in the catalog of the German National Library
- Speech to the German Bundestag on January 16, 1996 [1]
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://israelmatzav.blogspot.de/2006/10/historical-context-for-last-nights.html
- ↑ Bernard J. Shapiro: The Battle For Eretz Yisrael Jews, Gd and Israel, 1992-2011. IUniverse Inc., Bloomington (Indiana) 2011. ISBN 978-1-4620-0653-3 , p. 610
- ^ Sarah Honig : Debunking the Bull: For Seekers of Another Tack. Gefen Publishing House, Jerusalem 2013. ISBN 965-229-607-4 , p. 219
- ↑ BEN SEGENREICH: Weizman is talking himself offside. In: welt.de . October 26, 1995. Retrieved October 7, 2018 .
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/apr/26/guardianobituaries.israel
- ↑ Eric Silver: Ezer Weizman in: The Independent, April 26, 2005. Retrieved January 29, 2012.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Dan Tolkowskie |
Commanders of the Israeli Air Force 1958–1966 |
Mordechai Hod |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Weizmann, Ezer |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | עזר ויצמן (Hebrew); Weizman, Eser |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Israeli President |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 15, 1924 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tel Aviv |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 24, 2005 |
| Place of death | Caesarea |