Levi Eshkol
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[Levi Eshkol] (Hebrew לֵוִי אֶשְׁכּוֹל , born Levi Skolnick, Hebrew לֵוִי שׁקוֹלנִיק; October 25, 1895 - February 26, 1969), was the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death of a heart attack in 1969. He was the first Israeli Prime Minister to die in office.
Levi Skolnick was born in a village of Oratov near Kiev, Ukraine. Levi's mother came from a Hasidic background and his father came from a family of Mitnagdim. Levi received a traditional education. In 1914, Skolnick left for the Land of Israel, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. He soon volunteered for the Jewish Legion.
After the establishment of the State of Israel, Eshkol was first elected to the Knesset in 1951 as a member of Mapai party. He served as Minister of Agriculture until 1952, when he was appointed Finance Minister following the death of Eliezer Kaplan, a position he held for the following 12 years. During his term as Finance Minister Eshkol established himself as a prominent figure in Mapai’s leadership, and was designated by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as his successor. When Ben-Gurion resigned in June 1963, Eshkol was elected party chairman with a broad consensus, and was consequently appointed Prime Minister. However his relationship with Ben-Gurion soon turned acrimonious over the latter’s insistence on investigating the Lavon Affair, an Israeli covert operation in Egypt gone wrong a decade earlier. Ben-Gurion failed to challenge Eshkol’s leadership and split from Mapai with a few of his young protégés to form Rafi in June 1965. Rafi was defeated by Mapai in the election held on November 1965, establishing Eshkol as the country’s indisputable leader. Yet Ben-Gurion, drawing on his influence as Israel’s founding father, continued to undermine Eshkol’s authority throughout his term as Prime Minister, portraying him as a spineless politician incapable of addressing Israel’s security predicament.
Eshkol’s first term in office saw continuous economic growth, epitomized by the opening of the National Water Carrier system in 1964. His and Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir's subsequent "soft landing" of the overheated economy by means of recessive policies precipitated a drastic slump in economic activity. Israel’s centralized planned economy lacked the mechanisms to self-regulate the slowdown which reached levels higher than expected. Eshkol faced growing domestic unrest as unemployment reached 12% percent in 1966, yet the recession eventually served in healing fundamental economic deficiencies and helped fuel the ensuing recovery of 1967-1973.
Eshkol worked to improve Israel’s foreign relations, establishing diplomatic relations with West Germany in 1965, as well as cultural ties with the Soviet Union which also allowed some Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. He was the first Israeli Prime Minister invited on an official state visit to the United States in May 1964. The special relationship he developed with President Lyndon Johnson would prove pivotal in securing US political and military support for Israel during the build-up preceding the Six Day War of June 1967. Today, Eshkol’s unyieldingness in face of military pressure to launch an Israeli attack is considered to have been instrumental in increasing Israel’s strategic advantage as well as obtaining international legitimacy, yet at the time he was perceived as hesitant, an image cemented following a dismally stuttered radio speech on May 28Michael B. Oren, 2003, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Random House, New York, p. 316. With Egyptian President Nasser's ever more overt provocations, he eventually succumbed to public opinion and established a National Unity Government together with Menachem Begin's Herut party, reluctantly conceding the Defense portfolio to war hero Moshe Dayan, a close ally of Ben-Gurion’s and a member of his Rafi party. Israel’s overwhelming victory allowed Eshkol to remain Prime Minister despite never receiving recognition for his role in achieving it. In the years following the war he slowly receded due to ill health, and died while in office in February 1969.
References
See also
- Eshkol lake
- Hevel Eshkol
External links
- [Short Biography of Levi Eshkol] from the Jewish Virtual Library
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