Aryeh Eldad | |
|---|---|
אריה אלדד | |
_(3x4_cropped).jpg) Portrait of Eldad | |
| Faction represented in theKnesset | |
| 2003–2012 | National Union |
| 2012–2013 | Otzma LeYisrael |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1950-05-01)1 May 1950 (age 75) Tel Aviv, Israel |
| Parent | Israel Eldad (father) |
| Education | Tel Aviv University |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | Israel Defense Forces |
| Rank | Tat Aluf (Brigadier General) |
Aryeh Eldad (Hebrew:אריה אלדד; born 1 May 1950) is an Israeli physician, politician and former medical officer.
Born inTel Aviv, Eldad is a professor of medicine, and was head of the plastic surgery and burns unit at theHadassah Medical Center. He was a member of theKnesset from 2003 to 2013 for theNational Union, and from 2012 forOtzma LeYisrael, which he co-founded. He was formerly a chief medical officer, and the senior commander of theIsraeli Defense Forces medical corps.
Eldad was born inTel Aviv on 1 May 1950. As a child, he was a voice actor in radio plays for Israeli state radio.[1] He is married, with five children. His father,Israel Eldad, was a well-known Israeli public thinker, and formerly one of the leaders of the militant underground groupLehi.[2][3] Aryeh Eldad is a resident of theIsraeli settlement ofKfar Adumim,[4] and was aBrigadier-General (reserves) in theIsrael Defense Forces.[5]
Eldad studiedmedicine atTel Aviv University, where he earned his doctorate.[6] He served as the chief medical officer, and was the senior commander of theIsraeli Defense Forces medical corps for 25 years, and reached a rank ofTat Aluf (Brigadier General).[6] He won the Evans Award from the American Burns Treatment Association for his treatment of burns.[7] Eldad is a professor of medicine, and was head of theplastic surgery and burns unit at theHadassah Medical Center hospital inJerusalem.[5]
Eldad was first elected to the Knesset on the National Union list in 2003,[7] and chaired the Ethics Committee. Prior to the scheduledIsraeli withdrawal from theGaza Strip and the northernWest Bank in August 2005, Eldad was the only member of parliament to call for non-violent civil disobedience as a tactic in the struggle against the government. Eldad even walked the few hundred kilometres between the now-evacuated community ofSa-Nur (in the northernWest Bank) toNeve Dekalim (south Gaza Strip), in order to attract attention to the opposition of the Withdrawal plan.[8]
In the February 2006 dismantlement of theAmona outpost, Eldad was injured during the confrontation between demonstrators and police, as was his ally MKEffi Eitam.[9] The event caused a storm of criticism on both sides, as interim Prime MinisterEhud Olmert accused them of inciting the crowd to attack the police, while they accused Olmert and the police of reckless use of force.[10]
After being re-elected in 2006, in August 2007, Eldad established and headed a 10-memberHomesh First Knesset caucus met for the first time. The caucus' mandate is to work to promote the re-establishment of Homesh, with the aim of eventually re-establishing all the settlements dismantled in 2005.[11]
In October 2007 he took part in the internationalcounter-jihad conference in Brussels.[12][13] He organised a counter-jihad conference himself titled "Facing Jihad" in Jerusalem the following year that included a screening of the filmFitna byGeert Wilders.[14][15]
In November 2007, he announced the formation of a new secular right-wing party namedHatikva. Ultimately, the party ran as a faction of the National Union in the2009 elections, with Eldad in third place on the alliance's list. He retained his seat as the Union won four mandates.
In 2008, afterMeretz ChairmanYossi Beilin submitted a bill to remove the Jewish settlers from Hebron, Eldad called the proposal "racist". In protest, he submitted a "mirror image" bill to the Knesset proposing thatHebron's Arab residents be removed "in order to protect the Jews of Hebron".[16]
Eldad's 2009 proposal that Palestinian Arabs be given Jordanian citizenship drew a formal protest from the Jordanian foreign minister.[17]
In 2012, Eldad andMichael Ben-Ari launched a new party,Otzma LeYisrael.[18] However, the party failed to cross the 2% threshold in the2013 elections, and Eldad subsequently lost his Knesset seat.[19]
In 2008, Eldad said he planned to introduce "anti-Islamization legislation" in the Knesset in order to "confront the enemy within and without". He would reveal details of the plan at his "Facing Jihad" conference the same month.[20]
In response toDavid Miliband's statement that the Israeli cloning of British passports is "intolerable", Eldad commented in 2010: "I think the British are being hypocritical, and I do not wish to insult dogs here, since some dogs show true loyalty, [but] who gave the British the right to judge us on the war on terror?".[21]
DuringMahmoud Ahmadinejad's visit toLebanon in October 2010, Eldad stated: "History would have been different if in 1939, some Jewish soldier had succeeded in taking Hitler out. If Ahmadinejad can be in the crosshairs of an IDF rifle when he comes to throw rocks at us, he must not return home alive."[22]
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