Meridor, Dan

(1947- )

   Born in Jerusalem, he is the son of former Irgun commander and Herut member of the Knesset, Yaacov Meridor, making the younger Meridor a "Likud prince." Having graduated from the faculty of law at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he served as government secretary from 1982 to 1984. First elected to the Knesset on the Likud list in 1984, he became minister of justice in the government established in December 1988 and retained that position in the government of June 1990. In July 1996, he agreed to join the governing coalition headed by Benjamin Netanyahu as finance minister. He resigned in June 1997 to protest the perceived lack of support from the prime minister for the package of economic reforms that he sought to institute.

   On 22 December 1998, Meridor quit the Likud in order to form his own centrist party that would contest election to the 15th Knesset; he also announced his candidacy for the position of prime minister. He subsequently joined with former Likud members of the Knesset Ronnie Milo and Yitzhak Mordechai and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff Amnon Lipkin-Shahak to form the new Center Party to contest the 17 May 1999 Knesset election. However, when the Center Party dissolved during the 15th Knesset, Meridor temporarily returned to the Likud Party but then took his leave of party politics. Meridor is now international chair of the Jerusalem Foundation. He headed a committee that in April 2006 presented a 250-page report to the IDF general staff and to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recommending a new national defense doctrine for Israel. Meridor took part in the Winograd Committee that looked at Israel's actions in the Second Lebanon War (2006).