Lavon, Pinhas

(formerly Lubianiker)

(1904-76)

   The key figure in the "affair" that clouded Israel's political life for almost a decade from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s and resulted in the downfall of a government and the splitting-up of the country's ruling Mapai Party. Born on 12 July 1904 in Kopychynsti in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he studied law at the University of Lviv, where he organized Histadrut organizations in the region. He immigrated (see ALIYA) to Palestine in 1929 at the age of 25, became active in the Mapai Party, and served as its secretary from 1935 to 1937. After Israel's independence, he was elected to the first Knesset and was appointed minister of agriculture in David Ben-Gurion's second government. He retained his seat in the 1951 election of the second Knesset and in 1952 was appointed minister without portfolio. Following Ben-Gurion's resignation, he was appointed minister of defense in 1954. However, following the Lavon Affair, in which he was accused of involvement in terrorist bombings in Egypt, he resigned from the cabinet. Nevertheless, he remained a member of the Knesset following the elections of the third Knesset (1955) and the fourth Knesset (1959) and was later absolved of any involvement in the Egyptian bombings. He retired from public life in 1964 after a long-standing discord with Ben-Gurion. He died in Tel Aviv on 24 January 1976.