Israeli Prime Ministers
Prime ministers of the state of Israel since 1948
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- Benjamin Netanyahu was born on 21 October 1949 in Tel Aviv, Israel.1996-1999, 2009-2021, 2022-
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Yair Lapid is an Israeli politician and former journalist who has been serving as the 14th prime minister of Israel since 1 July 2022. He previously served as the alternate prime minister of Israel and minister of Foreign Affairs from 2021 to 2022. Lapid is the chairman of the centrist Yesh Atid party, and was Leader of the Opposition from 2020 to 2021, and Minister of Finance from 2013 to 2014.2022- Ehud Olmert was born on 30 September 1945 in Binyamina, Palestine. He has been married to Aliza Richter since 1970. They have five children.2006-2009
- Ariel Sharon was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
Sharon was a commander in the Israeli Army from its creation in 1948. As a soldier and then an officer, he participated prominently in the 1948 Palestine war, becoming a platoon commander in the Alexandroni Brigade and taking part in many battles, including Operation Bin Nun Alef. He was an instrumental figure in the creation of Unit 101 and the reprisal operations, as well as in the 1956 Suez Crisis, the Six-Day War of 1967, the War of Attrition, and the Yom-Kippur War of 1973. Yitzhak Rabin called Sharon "the greatest field commander in our history".
Upon retirement from the military, Sharon entered politics, joining the Likud party, and served in a number of ministerial posts in Likud-led governments in 1977-92 and 1996-99. As Minister of Defense, he directed the 1982 Lebanon War. An official enquirer found that he bore "personal responsibility" for the Sabra and Shatila massacre and recommended that he be removed as Defense Minister. His role in the massacre led to him being known as the "Butcher of Beirut" among Arabs.
From the 1970s through to the 1990s, Sharon championed construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He became the leader of the Likud in 2000, and was elected Prime Minister of Israel after defeating Ehud Barak in the 2001 prime ministerial election. He served as Israel's prime minister from 2001 to 2006, during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. As Prime Minister, Sharon orchestrated Israel's unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2004-05. Facing stiff opposition to this policy within the Likud, in November 2005 he left Likud to form a new party, Kadima. He had been expected to win the next election and was widely interpreted as planning on "clearing Israel out of most of the West Bank", in a series of unilateral withdrawals. After suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006, Sharon remained in a permanent vegetative state until his death in January 2014.
Sharon remains a highly polarizing figure in Middle East history. Israelis almost universally revere Sharon as a war hero and statesman who played a vital role in defining the country's borders. Palestinians revile Sharon as a war criminal, who suppressed their aspirations for statehood.2001-2006 - Ehud Barak was born on 12 February 1942 in Kibbutz Mishmar Ha-Sharon, Palestine [now Israel]. He was previously married to Na'ava Barak.1999-2001
- Shimon Peres was born on 2 August 1923 in Wiszniewo, Poland [now Vishnyeva, Belarus]. He was married to Sonya Gelman. He died on 28 September 2016 in Ramat Gan, Israel.1984-1986, 1995-1996
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Yitzhak Rabin was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974-77, and from 1992 until his assassination in 1995.
Rabin was born in Jerusalem to Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe and was raised in a Labor Zionist household. He learned agriculture in school and excelled as a student. He led a 27-year career as a soldier and ultimately attained the rank of Rav Aluf. As a teenager he joined the Palmach, the commando force of the Yishuv. He eventually rose through its ranks to become its chief of operations during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He joined the newly formed Israel Defense Forces in late 1948 and continued to rise as a promising officer. He helped shape the training doctrine of the IDF in the early 1950s, and led the IDF's Operations Directorate from 1959 to 1963. He was appointed Chief of the General Staff in 1964 and oversaw Israel's victory in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Rabin served as Israel's ambassador to the United States from 1968 to 1973, during a period of deepening U.S.-Israel ties. He was appointed Prime Minister of Israel in 1974 after the resignation of Golda Meir. In his first term, Rabin signed the Sinai Interim Agreement and ordered the Entebbe raid. He resigned in 1977 in the wake of a financial scandal. Rabin was Israel's minister of defense for much of the 1980s, including during the outbreak of the First Intifada.
In 1992, Rabin was re-elected as prime minister on a platform embracing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He signed several historic agreements with the Palestinian leadership as part of the Oslo Accords. In 1994, Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize together with long-time political rival Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Rabin also signed a peace treaty with Jordan in 1994. In November 1995, he was assassinated by an extremist named Yigal Amir, who opposed the terms of the Oslo Accords. Amir was convicted of Rabin's murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Rabin was the first native-born prime minister of Israel and was the only prime minister to be assassinated and the second to die in office after Levi Eshkol. Rabin has become a symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.1974-1977, 1992-1995- Yitzhak Shamir was born on 22 October 1915 in Ruzhany, Grodno Governorate, Russian Empire [now Brest Oblast, Belarus]. He was married to Shulamit Levy. He died on 30 June 2012 in Tel Aviv, Israel.1983-1984, 1986-1992
- Menachem Begin was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine. Later, the Irgun fought the Arabs during the 1947-48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and its chief Begin was also noted as "leader of the notorious terrorist organization" by the British government and banned from entering the United Kingdom.1977-1983
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She initially grew up in Pinsk. However, due to the anti-Jewish riots in Russia, the family emigrated to the USA in 1906, where they set up a small business in Milwaukee (Wisconsin). At the age of 14, Mabovitch ran away from home to live with her older sister in Denver. There in 1915 she came into contact with a socialist wing of the Zionist movement, which called the "Poale Zion" movement in the USA and advocated the establishment of an equal Jewish society in Palestine. In 1917 she married Morris Meyerson, whose name was Hebraized to "Meir" in 1956. In 1921 the couple emigrated to Palestine, where they joined Kibbutz Merhavia. In 1922 they moved to Jerusalem, where their first child, Menachem, was born a year later.
In 1928, Meir was appointed secretary of the Workers' Council of Histradut, the Jewish Workers' Union of Palestine. From 1932 to 1934 she worked as a representative of the women's organization in the USA. During this time she separated from her husband, who died in 1951. After her return, Meir was accepted into the Histadrut's executive committee in 1934 and made head of the political department. During the Second World War she was a member of the War Economic Advisory Board set up by the British Mandate Government for Palestine. In the last years of the British mandate after the war, Meir was the most important representative of the Jewish cause in Palestine. In 1947/48 she was actively involved in the preparations for the founding of the State of Israel. She was one of the 25 signatories of the Declaration of Independence of May 14, 1948, which is considered Israel's founding act.
As the first Israeli ambassador to the Soviet Union, Meir was sent to Moscow in 1948, where she soon began to initiate the emigration of numerous Jews to Israel and the West. In 1949, Meir returned to Israel, where she worked as a member of the Labor Party (Mapai) in the Knesset until 1974 and also in numerous government functions. As Minister of Labor from 1949 to 1955, she made outstanding progress in building a social system and creating jobs for the masses of immigrants. In the decade 1955 to 1965, Meir made a recognized name for herself at the international level as Israel's Foreign Minister. In this role, she primarily built a comprehensive development program for African states with which Israel had worked closely for a long time.
In 1965, Meir was promoted to general secretary of the Labor Party, as which she subsequently contributed to the unification of the three Labor parties to form the Israel Labor Party. On March 7, 1969, Meir was appointed Prime Minister of Israel, succeeding the late Eshkol. As head of government, the politician advocated negotiations and a peace solution with the Arab world. At the same time, however, it rejected talks with the PLO under Yasser Arafat because it viewed it as a terrorist organization. Meir was the first Jewish head of government to meet with Pope Paul VI at the beginning of 1973. together. In the fall it had to overcome a serious foreign policy crisis with the Yom Kippur War. In the general election of December 1973 the Labor Party was confirmed in government.
However, in 1974, Meir resigned from her position as head of government in connection with a parliamentary investigation into the military events during the Yom Kippur War. As a result, Meir continued to appear in public and in the press as an advocate for the Israeli cause.
Golda Meir died on December 8, 1978 in Jerusalem (Israel).1969-1974- Yigal Alon was born on 10 October 1918 in Kfar Tavor, Palestine [now Israel]. He died on 29 February 1980 in Afula, Israel.1969 (acting)
- Levi Eshkol was born on 25 October 1895 in Oratov, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire [now Orativ, Vinnytsia Oblast, Ukraine]. He was married to Miriam, Elisheva Kaplan and Rebecca Maharshek. He died on 26 February 1969 in Jerusalem, Israel.1963-1969
- At the age of 20, he emigrated to Palestine, where Ben-Gurion worked on farms and joined the Zionist movement. From 1910 he called himself David Ben-Gurion. He subsequently also studied law at the universities of Constantinople and Salonika. Because of his Zionist views, Ben-Gurion was then expelled from Palestine by the Turkish government. After the outbreak of World War I, Ben-Gurion joined a Jewish battalion in the British army to fight for the liberation of Palestine from Turkish rule.
After the war, his socialist convictions led him to join the ranks of the Jewish Workers' Movement, for which Ben-Gurion served as general secretary in Palestine under the British mandate from 1921 to 1935. In 1930 he was also promoted to head of the socialist "Mapai" party. In 1933, Ben-Gurion was accepted into the leadership of the World Zionist Organization. From 1935 to 1948, Ben-Gurion presided over the Jewish Agency, the most important Jewish representative body during the British mandate over Palestine. In this role, Ben-Gurion gained important experience in local self-government and in diplomatic exchanges with the British authorities.
The "Jewish Agency" and its chairman were therefore considered the core of the political leadership elite of a future state of Israel. Indeed, after Israel's proclamation in May 1948, Ben-Gurion rose to become its first prime minister. The conflicts with the Arab world that immediately followed prevented his government from fully implementing the economic policy program that the statesman had prepared to promote industry and agriculture. Nevertheless, Ben-Gurion was able to promote significant infrastructure measures and the economic use of natural resources.
After the statesman initially withdrew from politics in 1963, just two years later he joined a splinter group that had split off from the "Mapai" party. This political commitment was followed by his final withdrawal into private life in 1970. He has since been recognized as one of the founding fathers of the State of Israel. In 1973 he published the book "Israel, the History of a State".
David Ben-Gurion died on December 1, 1973 in Tel Aviv.1948-1954, 1955-1963 - Moshe Sharett was born on 15 October 1894 in Russia. He died on 7 July 1965 in Jerusalem, Israel.1954-1955