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April 29, 2005/Nisan 20 5765, Volume 57, No. 35
Former Israeli president Ezer Weizman dies at 80
DAN BARON
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
JERUSALEM - He was the ultimate Israeli highflier, literally as well as metaphorically, shepherding and shaping the Jewish state through war and peace with a singular, sometimes mordant charm.
And though Ezer Weizman, who died April 24 at 80, ended his public career tainted by scandal, to many Israelis he typified a national ideal.
"Ezer was a symbol and the embodiment of the Israeli sabra," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said of the former air force chief, defense minister and president. "I have lost a commander and a friend."
Israel's political and military establishment showed up en masse at a memorial service on April 26 to listen as Sharon, President Moshe Katsav, Israel Air Force head Eliezer Shkedi and Weizman's daughter, Michal Yaffe, eulogized him.
"Weizman will be remembered as a great patriot," Katsav said.
As Sharon paid tribute to Weizman's strength, importance and wisdom, he added, "There was also another Ezer, of the colony, the bottle of drink, the laughter, which all created a special spirit in the Air Force."
The scion of Zionist aristocracy - his uncle Chaim was Israel's first president - Weizman was born in Tel Aviv in 1924 and served in the Haganah underground. After earning a flying license as a teenager, he volunteered to fight alongside British pilots in the Royal Air Force during World War II.
The experience gave Weizman the knowledge to help create Israel's air force.
Weizman's experiences proved useful in brokering the landmark Camp David peace accord with Egypt in 1979.
Former President Carter, who brokered the Camp David agreement, called Weizman "one of the true heroes of Israel, in both times of war and peace."
After the 1967 Six Day War, a victory in which the Israel Air Force that Weizman had created played a key role, the deputy chief of staff doffed his uniform and joined Golda Meir's coalition government. Yet he resigned a year later to protest Jerusalem's acceptance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, which called for Israeli withdrawal from Arab lands captured during the conflict.
That he was to become a key player in Camp David, when Israel agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt, heralded a rather contrarian style of politics on Weizman's part. Having helped engineer the election victory of Menachem Begin's Likud party in 1977, he later became a member of Labor.
Weizman quit parliamentary politics in 1992, shortly after his son and daughter-in-law were killed in a car crash.
Weizman was sworn in as Israel's seventh president on May 13, 1993. He relished the office of president, which allowed him not only to challenge Israeli leaders but also to represent the country abroad. Yet his tenure ended under a cloud in 2000 when Weizman, dogged by revelations of financial impropriety while he served in the Cabinet, became Israel's first president to resign.
His health declined soon thereafter, and he spent much of this year hospitalized. Weizman is survived by his widow Reuma and their daughter Michal.
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