David Levy (Israeli politician)

David Levy (דוד לוי, 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.

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 She'an's working-class population.

As a union activist, he campaigned for membership in the Histadrut Labour Federation's 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 Orly Levy and Jackie Levy.

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.

Levy's 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 Begin's 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.

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.

On 15 January 1979 he was given the Ministry of Housing and Construction, a post he invested a great deal of time in.

Netanyahu turned down Levy's offer and became an ally of then-Defense Minister Moshe Arens (his former boss when Arens was Ambassador to the United States in the early 1980s).

Levy was criticized for his perceived pompousness and shifting policies on 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.

Levy's candidacy was supposed to rejuvenate the Likud's Mizrahi voting base and form a hawkish working class opposition to Labour.

Levy's 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 who 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"), Levy's own political party.

Levy believed he could draw a mass defection from the Likud of parliament members and topple Benjamin Netanyahu.

What 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.

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 Defense 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.

He served in this position in the governments of Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Shimon Peres.

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.

Levy held the ministry until 1990.

He first served as Foreign Minister in 1990, under Yitzhak Shamir.

Under Ehud Barak, Levy was again appointed foreign minister, with his deputy being Nawaf Mazalha (One Israel), an Arab Israeli.

Netanyahu and Levy agreed to establish Likud–Gesher–Tzomet, a joint three-party list for the May 1996 elections.

Magen later broke with Levy to join the Center Party in 1998 (then known as "Israel in the Center").

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 Barak's Labor-led government between 1999 and 2001.

David Levy was born in Rabat, Morocco.