Knesset
What was the position of David Levy (Israeli politician) from Jul 2002 to Apr 2006?
David Levy ( Israeli politician ) David Levy ( , born 21 December 1937 ) is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset between 1969 and 2006 , as well as Deputy Prime Minister , Minister of Foreign Affairs , Minister of Immigrant Absorption , Minister of Housing and Construction and as a Minister without Portfolio . Although most of his time as a Knesset member was spent with Likud , he also led the breakaway Gesher faction , which formed part of Ehud Baraks Labor-led government between 1999 and 2001 . Biography . David Levy was born in Rabat , Morocco . He immigrated to Israel in 1957 . His first jobs in Israel were planting trees for the Jewish National Fund and picking cotton on a kibbutz , where he organized a strike to protest the quality of drinking water for the workers . He went on to become a leader of Beit Sheans working-class population . As a union activist , he campaigned for membership in the Histadrut Labour Federations executive body , which was dominated by loyalists of the governing Mapai . Levy headed the opposition Blue-White faction . David Levy is married and the father of twelve children , including politician Orly Levy . Political career . Until 1973 Likud had been an alliance of the right-wing Herut and centrist Liberal parties known as Gahal , which had never had an active role in governing Israel and had always been a weak opposition . Levy distinguished himself as the first of many young working-class members of the party from a Mizrahi ( Oriental ) background . Until then Herut and the Liberals had been both dominated by right-wing upper-class or upper-middle-class intellectuals , businessmen , agriculturalists , or lawyers . Levys rise expressed the surging power of the new rebellion of the Mizrahi Israeli . In 1977 , Levy became one of the most strident campaigners in Likud leader Menachem Begins triumphant campaign that overturned the 30-year domination of Israeli elections by parties of the left . He drove hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi voters to the polls to vote for Begin , whose populist messages struck a chord in their hearts after the three decades of almost completely Ashkenazic Mapai hegemony . Ministerial positions . From 1977 until 1981 , Levy was Minister of Immigrant Absorption in the first two Begin governments . At this time the largest issues he dealt with during his tenure in that ministry were the campaign to liberate Soviet Jews confined to the USSR , and the controversy over the Beta Israel , a group from Ethiopia that had still not received total recognition as Jews at that time . Levys more important role in government began during the formation of Begins rightist government when the Democratic Movement for Change resigned . On 15 January 1979 he was given the Ministry of Housing and Construction , a post he invested a great deal of time in . Levy held the ministry until 1990 , and his policies are controversial for their repeated concessions to the settler movements , which the opposition Labour Party branded pure politicking . As Housing Minister Levy was able to make housing more affordable ( radical inflation in 1984 produced a crisis as property and rent values plummeted along with the Israeli shekels ) . While rival Likud members like Defence Minister Ariel Sharon and Health Minister Ehud Olmert were hit by controversies regarding abuse of their positions , and repeated finance ministers fell , Levy remained stable in the Housing Ministry . Through the governments of Begin , Yitzhak Shamir , and Shimon Peres he remained untouchable . Levy was the symbolic leader of the young Mizrahi Likud leaders that included former Kiryat Malakhi mayor Moshe Katzav , later President of Israel , and David Magen , mayor of neighbouring Kiryat Gat . In the Likud Central Committee , Levy commanded a huge portion of the members , and was considered a true candidate to succeed Shamir . In 1987 , he met Benjamin Netanyahu , then the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations . Levy viewed Netanyahu as a potential spokesman for him in the Knesset , as he was viewed as a master at rhetoric and debating during his career as a diplomat . Netanyahu turned down Levys offer and became a nominal ally of then-Defense Minister Moshe Arens ( his former boss when Arens was Ambassador to the United States in the early 1980s ) . Levys career was harmed by his perceived pompousnessand shifting policies in regards to the peace process . Levy , who speaks Hebrew , French , and Moroccan Arabic , was not fluent in English , which became an impediment in talks with the Americans . Levys candidacy was supposed to rejuvenate the Likuds Mizrahi voting base , and form a hawkish working class opposition to Labour . Levys policies on the peace question was moderate relative to Ariel Sharon , Moshe Arens , and almost all other senior Likud figures . Again he ran parallel to Benjamin Netanyahu . At that time , right-wing Israelis were launching a long opposition plan to the new prime minister , Yitzhak Rabin ( Labour ) . Netanyahu took a hard-line stand , describing a doomsday scenario of terror at the doorstep of every Israeli . Levy refused to accept Netanyahu as the new Likud chairman . The result was the establishment of Gesher ( Bridge ) , Levys own political party . Levy believed he could draw a mass defection from the Likud of parliament members , and such a disaster would lead senior party members in the Central Committee into a panic that would topple Benjamin Netanyahu . What instead occurred was that only David Magen , a Moroccan politician and former mayor of Kiryat Gat who served as Minister of Economics and Planning in the last Shamir government , broke with the Likud . Though many of Geshers members were derided by the press as lackeys of Levy , Magen later broke with Levy to join the Center Party in 1998 ( then known as Israel in the Center ) . By Winter 1996 , Levy was beginning to break under the stress of his first election campaign outside of the Likud . Since the 4 November 1995 murder of Rabin , Netanyahu was frantically trying to moderate his image from a hard-line demagogue into a skeptic who wanted to slow the pace of concessions to PLO leader Yasser Arafat . Levys inclusion would somewhat bring him closer to that goal without forcing him to take a clear stand in favour of the Oslo Accords . The opposition leader was trying to bridge the gap by recruiting the hard-line Tzomet ( Junction ) party of Gen . Rafael Eitan on the right , as well as the moderate right-wing Gen . Yitzhak Mordechai in the center . Throughout the spring , Netanyahu and Levy held negotiations , and in the end Levy agreed to establish Likud–Gesher–Tzomet , a joint three-party list for the May 1996 elections . Though the broad-based coalition at the end of the outgoing Knesset included 37 members ( three Tzomet members defected earlier to join Rabins government ) even threatened Labour , which had lost two members to Avigdor Kahalanis The Third Way , a group opposed to any compromise on the Golan Heights . Though a massive success for Netanyahu , the 1996 elections gained little for Levy in terms of power within Likud–Gesher–Tzomet . The real no . 2 leader in the Likud was now Mordechai , and the right-wing character of the government was clear from the start . Levy also demanded the Foreign Ministry , which he received , even without being blunted by a deputy . He believed that this way he could remain totally in control of the ministry , but instead he was again overshadowed by Netanyahu , who controlled almost every important foreign policy decision during his term . David Magen was given the post of Deputy Minister of Finance , under Prof . Yuval Neeman . The Bar-On Affair , an attempt to alter the investigation of Shas leader Aryeh Deri , created tension amongst the partners . On 6 January 1998 David Levy quit the coalition along with former ambassador to France and Channel 2 chairman Yehuda Lancry and his brother and former Lod mayor Maxim . Gesher was once again totally independent , and Levy drifted closer to the policies of the Labour Party and opposition leader Ehud Barak . Levy merged Gesher into One Israel , and became a partner in the new coalitions leadership . With the new system of direct election of the prime minister , and a separate election of the Knesset , the number of parties elected to the body increased markedly in 1999 from eleven to fifteen , and the number would only grow as parties subdivided due to political tensions . The winning faction , One Israel , took only 26 seats , a record low for a governing party , though Barak won 56% of the direct vote for prime minister . Netanyahus Likud was crushed as expected , winning only 19 seats and leading to his immediate resignation from the Knesset and public life . Levy once again was chosen to be foreign minister , with his deputy being Nawaf Mazalha ( One Israel ) , an Arab Israeli . Levy was for the third time a passive partner as foreign minister . He quit the coalition in April 2000 in response to Baraks attempts to move peace negotiations forward and in protest to the announced plan to withdraw Israeli military forces from Lebanon . Levy was the first minister in Baraks government to resign when his demands were not met . He reformed Gesher along with Maxim Levy and rookie legislator Mordechai Mishani . In February 2002 One Nation quit Sharons government to protest his economic policies . Their leader , Histadrut Labour Federation chairman Amir Peretz . Levys position for the elections for the 16th Knesset was precarious . Levy left Gesher and moved back to the Likud . Etty ( Estee ) Shiraz , the partys head of communications at that time , was elected as the head of Gesher instead of David Levy , and led Gesher in the elections to the 16th Knesset . Levy and his supporters objected in the petition to prevent Shiraz and the rest of Gesher members from continuing the partys activity , and asked to dissolve the party and relate to his move as a merge of his political party in its entirety . The struggle continued years later , while Shiraz and other members of the party are trying to rebuild Gesher and transform it into a modern social party appealing to Israels young generation of academics and professionals , and David Levy and his supporters seeking to dismantle it . Levy was elected as a member of the 16th Knesset but did not get a realistic place on the Likud list in the election to the 17th Knesset and disappeared from the political arena . Following the Kadima split , Levy failed to acquire a high position on Likuds Knesset list , and as a result of this lost his seat at the 2006 election . Awards and recognition . In 2018 , David Levy won the Israel Prize for lifetime achievement .