Ben Eliezer, Binyamin

He came from an Iraqi Jewish family. He was fluent in Hebrew, Arabic and English.

In 1950, he and his family repatriated to Israel . In 1954 he mobilized in the IDF , in the Golani brigade. In 1958 he became an officer, graduated from the Command and Staff College of the Israel Defense Forces, as well as the Israel National Defense College. During the Six Day War, he commanded a special unit Shaked .

From 1970 to 1973 he was a member of the Israel Defense Forces military mission in Singapore, during the Doomsday War (1973) he again commanded Israeli forces and was wounded. After the war, he tried to establish friendly relations with Lebanese Christians and created on the border with Lebanon the so-called Good Border Fences (Hebrew: הגדר הטובה). In 1978, he was appointed commander of the military forces in the territories of Judea and Samaria , where he served until 1982 . In 1982, he resigned, but at the request of Prime Minister Menachem Begin, he remained in the position of coordinator of government activities in the territories.

In 1984, he finally left the army with the rank of brigadier general and began political activity. From the beginning he joined Aaron Abuhatsira. Then he joined Ezer Weizmann , who founded the Yahad party. In the 1984 general election, Yahad received three mandates, including Ben-Eliezer. After the election, the party teamed up with Maarah and he quickly became a prominent activist of the new party. In 1992, he promoted the election of Yitzhak Rabin to the post of leader of the Avod party , who after the election appointed him to the post of Minister of Housing. He held this post from 1992 to 1996 . As Minister of Housing, he consistently promoted the policy of building new settlements, especially in the Jerusalem area. In 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin sent him on a secret mission to Tunisia, where he turned out to be the first Israeli minister to negotiate with Yasser Arafat .

From 1999 to 2001, he occupied the posts of Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Communications of Israel in the government of Ehud Barak , while from 2000 to 2001 he was Minister of Construction; developed a separation plan for the Palestinian territories

In 2001, after losing the election and resigning, Ehud Barak joined the party in the coalition of Ariel Sharon , who appointed him to the post of Minister of Defense , which he held until 2002 , having resigned due to disagreements with the Prime Minister over the budget for next year . At the same time, he put forward his candidacy for the post of leader of the Avod party instead of Shimon Peres , where he defeated the former Knesset chairman Abraham Burg with a slight advantage. On the eve of the 2003 Knesset elections , new elections were held for the leader of the party, Avod , and Ben-Eliezer lost them to Amram Mitzne .

After the approval of the disengagement plan on January 10, 2005 , the Avoda party joined the Sharon government and Ben-Eliezer was appointed Minister of National Infrastructure. After the party leader’s election in September of the same year that Amir Peretz won, Avoda quit the government coalition and Ariel Sharon announced early elections. In the new government of Ehud Olmert on May 4, 2006 he again received the post of Minister of National Infrastructure. In the government of Benjamin Netanyahu , formed in 2009 , received the position of Minister of Industry and Trade, which he held until 2011 .

In 2013, he was re-elected to the Knesset, but due to health reasons, in December 2014, he refused his mandate. In 2014, he was considered as a possible candidate for the presidency of Israel, but refused to fight after corruption charges appeared against him.

He was married, the father of five children.

• Benjamin bin Eliezer on the Knesset website