Ezer Weizman

Ezer Weizman , was born on June 15th, 1924 with Tel Aviv and deceased on April 24th, 2005 is a soldier and an Israeli politician.

It is the seventh President of the State of Israel according to March 1993 until its resignation in July 2000.

Biography

Heroic figure of Israel, he is the nephew of Chaim Weizmann, first President of the State of Israel.

Married and father of two children (Saul and Michal), Ezer Weizman took part in many wars of Israel. He paid a personal tribute, his Saul son being seriously wounded in 1956 during the countryside of Suez. This one will die in 1991 in an car accident.

Ezer Weizman wrote three books.

In March 2004, he was hospitalized at the hospital of Haïfa for a Pneumonie. He is deceased on April 24th, 2005 at the 81 years age, in his residence of Césarée in the north of Tel-Aviv.

Military career

Ezer Weizman joined the British Army in 1942, in order to contribute to the British effort of war against the Nazis. Pilot in the Royal Air Force (the RAF), it carries out his first combat in India.

In 1946, after the demobilization, it joined the Irgoun, and in 1948, he is fighter pilot on behalf of the Haganah - the embryo of Tsahal. The same year, it brings back of German old men Messerschmitt bought to the Czechoslovakia to fight in the First Israeli-Arab War.

Weizman, is one of the founders of the Israeli forces of the air; officer, it will direct them 1958 to 1966. Its contribution to the victory at the time of the Guerre the Six Day old is essential, as a chief of the operations of the air force. There leaves the army in 1969, but remains a highly skilled pilot - besides he preserved, with personal capacity, a specimen of a Spitfire English.

Political career

He joined the party Gahal, which will become later the Likoud, and is used as minister of Transport in the government as Levi Eshkol. He is Minister for Defense under the government of Menahem Begin. He will be distinguished on two plans:

the launching of the project Lavi, Israeli fighter plan, whose design will have to be abandoned because of the American pressures;
the peace agreement between Israel and the Egypt, which will lead it little by little to being qualified of “dove” by its own camp

It leaves the government in 1980 to create a new party with Moshe Dayan, without success. It launches out then in the medium of the businesses, of 1980 with 1984. In 1984, it creates the party Yachad, which obtains three seats with the Knesset. It takes part then in the alternate governments of Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Shamir, before melting its own party within the Workers party.

In March 1993, Ezer Weizman is elected President of the State of Israel. Its mandate is characterized by a not very usual outspokenness at this purely honorary station. Weizman is implied much in the fight against the Terrorisme, visiting good number of the victims' families of the Hamas and the Hezbollah. It is also implied in the peace talks, not hesitating to invite Yasser Arafat in visit deprived in its house of Césarée.

In 1999, a series of articles evokes a scandal of fraud implying it. According to the revelations of the journalist Yoav Itshak, it would have received from the French business man Edouard Saroussi - a trafficker of weapons international - and dissimilated, a “gift” of an amount of 453.465 dollars paid on an bank account managed by its personal lawyer. Poured between 1988 and 1993, a few months hardly before its nomination at the position of president, this money forwarded then partly on its own account like on those of his wife and her daughter. Not having been able to give clear explanations on these movements of capital, it is constrained to give its resignation on July 13rd, 2000. The investigation also showed that the Saroussi corrupter poured in 1984, a sum of 6 million dollars to the transitory political party, the Yachad, launched by Weizman. In fact this money would have been versed as rewards after Weizman had assembled a secret operation commando to save Saroussi threatened by traffickers of weapons to the Costa Rica and in serious difficulty. This operation assembled with the logistic assistance of the Mossad and by using an Israeli jet at the beginning had been presented like an operation to thwart a plot assembled by Palestinian PFLP.

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