Ze'evi, Rehavam (Gandhi)

(1926-2001)

   Born in Jerusalem and educated at Givat Hashlosha Local School, he entered the Israel Defense Forces and rose to the rank of major general. He later entered politics and became leader of the Moledet (Homeland) Party, a party that advocates the transfer of the Arab population of the Occupied Territories to Arab countries. Under Ze'evi's leadership, Moledet won two seats in the 12th Knesset (1988) and joined the narrow right-wing coalition formed by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in the spring of 1990 following the collapse of the second Likud-Israel Labor Party Government of National Unity, with Ze'evi serving as minister without portfolio. However, Ze'evi and Moledet subsequently quit the government to protest Israel's participation in the Madrid Middle East Peace Conference. Ze'evi was reelected to the 13th Knesset (1992) and 14th Knesset (1996) on the Moledet list. In 1999, Ze'evi was reelected to the 15th Knesset on the list of the National Union coalition headed by Ze'ev Binyamin Begin. In March 2001, he was appointed minister of tourism but submitted his resignation on 15 October 2001 to protest Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's handling of the Al-Aksa intifada. On the morning of 17 October 2001, on the day that the resignation was to take effect, Ze'evi was assassinated in a Jerusalem hotel by terrorists affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

   See also Political parties.