David Levy Israeli politician: Encyclopedia II - David Levy Israeli politician - Political Complications

David Levy Israeli politician - Political Complications

As a senior Likud figure, Levy gained a huge following. While Likud leader Shamir proved often to be an aloof and incompetent player when it came to making coalitions, the construction worker with an eighth grade education was able to enter doors closed on the aging prime minister. These included Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a powerful Mizrahi rabbi with inclinations towards Shamir's nemesis, Labour leader Peres, and the spiritual leader of the Shas party. Levy helped Likud court into being in the Shamir government, until that party decided to leave in 1990.

Levy also was the symbolic leader of the young Mizrahi Likud leaders that included former Kiryat Malakhi mayor Moshe Katzav,later President of Israel, and David Magen, mayor of neighbouring Kiryat Gat. In the Likud Central Committee Levy commanded a huge portion of the members, and was considered a true candidate to succeed Shamir.

In 1987, however, he met a young diplomat named Benjamin Netanyahu, then the whiz kid Israeli ambassador to the United Nations. The meeting, in a New York hotel suite according to Netanyahu: The Way to Power, was an attempt by Levy to hoard Netanyahu into his camp in preparation for the 1988 Knesset elections. Levy viewed Netanyahu as a potential spokesman for him in the Knesset, as he was viewed as a master at rhetoric and debating during his career as a diplomat.

Had he joined, Netanyahu may have been the difference that brought Levy to power as the head of the Likud. As it happened, Netanyahu turned down Levy's became a nominal ally of then-Defence Minister Moshe Arens, his former boss when Arens was Ambassador to the United States in the early 1980s. This created a fierce enmity between the two, one that would lead to the decline of Levy's influence in the Likud.

One of the personal qualities that hurt Levy's career was his percieved pompousness, and his obviously shifting policies in regards to the peace process, the Likud's libertarian economic policy, and allegations by and against him of racism. As hard as it had been for a Mizrahi youth to succeed in Mapai, in the Likud there were also many members who held racist views against Mizrahim, just as there were many operatives working for Levy who held a grudge against Ashkenazim (European Jews). Also, during the Shamir administrations the Likud caused many Mizrahi voters to vote for Shas, the Israeli Mizrahi Movement ("Tami"), Labour, or parties of the extreme right Tehiya, Tzomet, and Moledet. Levy was unable to stop his transformation from the symbol of Mizrahi vibrance into a caricature of the stigma of a corrupt clan chief. Nevertheless, Levy's popularity remained untouchable in his native Beit Shean, where today his son Jackie remains the mayor.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Political Complications", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki