Silvan Shalom | |
|---|---|
סילבן שלום | |
 | |
| Ministerial roles | |
| 1998–1999 | Minister of Science & Technology |
| 2001–2003 | Minister of Finance |
| 2001–2006 | Deputy Prime Minister |
| 2003–2006 | Minister of Foreign Affairs |
| 2009–2013 | Vice Prime Minister |
| 2009–2015 | Minister for Regional Development |
| 2009–2015 | Minister for the Development of the Negev & Galilee |
| 2013–2015 | Minister of National Infrastructure, Energy & Water Resources |
| 2015 | Vice Prime Minister |
| 2015 | Minister of the Interior |
| Faction represented in theKnesset | |
| 1992–2015 | Likud |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1958-08-04)4 August 1958 (age 67) |
Zion Silvan Shalom (Hebrew:ציון סילבן שלום; born 4 August 1958) is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset forLikud between 1992 and 2015. He held several prominent ministerial positions, includingVice Prime Minister andMinister of the Interior. He resigned on 24 December 2015 following allegations ofsexual harassment.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Later on, the Attorney-General closed this investigation and said these claims were unsubstantiated.[8]
Shalom was born inGabès,Tunisia on 4 August 1958[9] to a family that traced its roots to theSephardic Beit Shalom dynasty. His familymoved to Israel in 1959, settling in the city ofBeersheba in theNegev. On 3 November 1964, when Shalom was six years old, his father Shimon Shalom, a bank manager and a member of theBetar movement, was killed during the course of a bungled bank robbery. The murder was notoriously known as the first committed in a bank robbery in the history of the young State of Israel. At the age of 18, Shalom was inducted into theIsrael Defense Forces (IDF) and rose to the rank ofsergeant.
After completing his service in the IDF, Shalom attendedBen-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, from which he received aBA ineconomics and earned his certification as aCertified Public Accountant. During that time, Shalom was elected as the chairman of the university's students' union and later as the vice chairman of the national students union. He then studied law andpublic policy atTel Aviv University. He received anLLB and was certified as a lawyer, and a received aMaster's degree in public policy.
Shalom began his career as a journalist. While working on hisbachelor's degree, he wrote forYedioth Aharonoth, a daily newspaper, in its students section. Afterwards he started working at theRosh Berosh magazine and in the Negev's local newspaper. In 1980, he moved to Tel Aviv and started working at the now-defunct dailyHadashot. In 1984, he was appointed as its head political and economic correspondent.
In 1985, Shalom was appointed adviser to theFinance Minister,Yitzhak Moda'i, who was later appointedJustice Minister. At the age of 31, he was appointeddirector-general of theEnergy Ministry and two years later, in 1990, he was appointed director-general of theIsrael Electric Corporation.
In 1992, at the age of 34, Shalom was 34th on the Likud list for the 13th Knesset, but the party received only 33 seats in the elections. When formerDefense MinisterMoshe Arens resigned, Shalom succeeded him as an MK.
As a young MK, his first bill was in the academic field. In 1992 there was room for only 100,000 university students, with no space for more. Shalom acted to allow all students to be accepted once others left their academic institutions at the end of their first year. His bill increased awareness about the problem and, as a result, Israeli colleges were established to expand access to academic studies. In 2010, for the first time, more students were enrolled in colleges than universities.Shalom, during his first term, was the first male MK to be a member of the Knesset's committee on the status of women. He was also the chairman of the subcommittee regarding the capital market, chairman of the subcommittee of energy and a member of the economic affairs committee.
Following the1996 election, Shalom, who won the 18th spot in the combined list of Likud and two other conservative parties, becameDeputy Defense Minister under the ministerYitzhak Mordechai. One of his biggest achievements was enablingHareidi Jews to serve in the army, a step that they had been avoiding for decades. The Hareidi battalion, "Netzah Yehuda", was established in February 1999.
After a rotation with MKMichael Eitan, Shalom, on 13 July 1998, becameMinister of Science. During his year in office he created the "science flowers" project, which helped universities reach Israel's periphery and helped underprivileged students excel. Another main project Shalom was involved in was in expandingInternet andbroadband access in Israel.
In the 1999 election, the Likud party, headed by the widely unpopular prime minister at the time,Benjamin Netanyahu, was running against theLabor party, headed byEhud Barak. Labor won 26 seats in the Knesset, while Likud received only 19 seats and lost the election. After Labor gained power in 1999 and following Netanyahu's resignation, Shalom became number one on the Likud list and became part of the opposition led byAriel Sharon.
Shalom was the runner-up to Netanyahu for party leadership inDecember 2005[10] and was granted the second spot on the Likud list to the 2006 general election and thus did not compete in its 11 January 2006 primaries. He was placed seventh on the party's list for the2009 elections.
In January 2010, he asked PopeBenedict XVI to open the wartime archives of the papacy ofPius XII.[11]
AsEnergy Minister Shalom led an Israeli delegation toAbu Dhabi onrenewable energy in January 2014. The visit was controversial, as theUnited Arab Emirates did not maintain diplomatic relations with Israel and no Israeli leaders had traveled there since the assassination ofMahmoud al-Mabhouh in 2010.[12][13]
In May 2012, during a meeting with Likud activists in the city ofRehovot, Shalom said about the heads of Likud opposition to founding of a Palestinian state, "We are all against a Palestinian state, there is no question about it."[14][15][16]
Following the2015 elections Shalom was appointed Interior Minister and Vice Prime Minister.
On 24 March 2014, a woman complained that Shalom had sexually harassed her at work more than 15 years before. The police investigation was closed several months later by theAttorney General,Yehuda Weinstein, since thestatute of limitations had already passed. Two other former employees also accused him of touching them against their will. All three alleged he had cornered them on various occasions and tried to kiss them. One woman said she was once summoned to a Jerusalem hotel room where Shalom was staying, only to find him waiting for her on the bed, wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Another said, "He kissed me against my will, and when I tried to get away, he chased me into the bathroom." The third woman said that during one of their meetings, Shalom "told me he's had intimate thoughts about me for years and that he wanted to see me outside the office."[17]
In the aftermath, Shalom decided not to submit his candidacy for the position ofPresident of Israel. He had been considered a front-runner for the post before the allegation was made.[18]
In late 2015, new allegations were made by women, triggering Shalom's announcement on 21 December that he would withdraw from public life and resign. He denied all the allegations. "For some 23 years, I have served the public with determination and faith as an MK and a minister in various offices out of a feeling I was fulfilling a mission and a desire to advance important social and public goals, but I have had enough of the torment inflicted on me and my family," Shalom said in a statement announcing his resignation. "My family supports me, but there is no justification for the price they've had to pay."[17] He was replaced byAmir Ohana as a member of Knesset.[19]
The Attorney General instructed the Major Crimes Unit of theIsrael Police to examine the new allegations.[17] On 30 June 2016, Attorney-GeneralAvichai Mandelblit ended the preliminary examination of the allegations. The Justice Ministry issued a statement reading: "Some of the women could not be located, or there was no grounds to approach them due to the quality of the information concerning them; some didn't confirm the claims, and some didn't rule out the claims, but decisively refused to give testimony to the police. Regardless, in some of the cases the statute of limitations expired on the information."[20] Only one of the accusers filed an official police report.[21] On 3 July 2016, a group of Members of Knesset and party activists began efforts to bring Shalom back into politics.[22]
From 1993 to 2017 Shalom was married to Israeli talk show hostJudy Shalom Nir-Mozes.[23] The couple have five children, including two sons from Mozes previous marriage.
Media related toSilvan Shalom at Wikimedia Commons
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