David Levy was born in Rabat, Morocco, in December 1937 and lived in the development town of Beit Shean after immigrating to Israel with his family in 1957. His father, Moshe, was a carpenter in Morocco but became unemployed soon after the family migrated to Israel. His brother, Maxim, was also active in Israeli politics.
Levy was popular with the generation of Israelis who arrived in the country after independence, especially those of North African origin. To a significant degree he was a "man of the people" and seemed to have a good deal of attraction with the common man in Israel, partly because in many respects his biography was very similar to that of most of the immigrants to Israel from North Africa. In Israel his family lived first in a ma'abarot (the tent camps set up to temporarily house new immigrants). Then they moved to the development town of Beit Shean. Unemployment was widespread, as was poverty. As a teenager Levy was involved in protests against conditions and even spent some days in jail. He also worked in the cotton fields of a nearby kibbutz and organized a strike to protest working conditions.
Levy began his political career in the Histadrut (the Israel labor federation) and later served as chairman of its faction in the Likud Party bloc. He was a candidate for the position of secretary-general of the Histadrut in the 1977 and 1981 elections, but he failed to win. At the age of 26 (1963) he was elected to represent the construction workers' union on the Beit Shean Worker's Council. The next year he was elected to the Municipal Council on behalf of the Herut Party and soon became deputy council chairman. He joined the Herut Central Committee.
First elected on behalf of the Herut Party to the Seventh Knesset (parliament) in October 1969, he was re-elected to all subsequent Knessets on behalf of the same faction in the Likud bloc. Levy was appointed minister of immigrant absorption in June 1977, and minister of construction and housing in January 1978. In August 1981 he became deputy prime minister and minister of construction and housing, and he retained those posts in the National Unity Government established in 1984. In the government established in December 1988 he became deputy prime minister and minister of construction and housing. As minister of housing he worked out various approaches to facilitate housing for young couples through subsidized mortgages and various guarantees for builders. He became minister of foreign affairs in the Likud-led government established by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in June 1990, while retaining the position of deputy prime minister.
In 1993, Benjamin Netanyahu won 54 percent in the Likud primary to Levy's 26 percent, to gain the leadership of the opposition party. He further vowed not to take a leadership role in a Netanyahu team.
He eventually reconciled with the Likud and Netanyahu enough to accept a position as Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, although his tenure was consistently marked with public and frequent disagreements with rival Netanyahu.
Levy had twice before threatened to smash party unity, in each case if he were not appointed to a top cabinet post—the result being that he became deputy prime minister under Menachem Begin and foreign minister under Yitzhak Shamir. He boycotted the Central Committee meeting of the Likud in 1995, vowing to defect and found a new political party. The new party would be centrist, and would support the evolving peace agreement with the Palestinians, with the condition that no Israeli settlements are dismantled and that the security of Jewish settlers would have been insured. Several days later, however, he rescinded his vow to leave and publicly announced that he would stay with the Likud party.
In August 1996, Levy again vowed to represent a new party in general elections as candidate for prime minister. "New Way" was regarded as able to chip away at the Likud's power base and win a nominal number of seats in the parliament in November 1996. He provided no political agenda for the New Way, but called for the suspension of peace talks with Syria unless it curbed attacks against the Israeli army in south Lebanon by Hizbolla guerrillas.
On 6 January 1998 David Levy quit the coalition along with former ambassador to France and Channel 2 chairman Yehuda Lancry and his brother and former Lod mayor Maxim. Gesher was once again totally independent, and Levy drifted closer to the policies of the Labour Party and opposition leader Ehud Barak. The total lack of progress on the peace front had created cracks in his political rival Netanyahu's foundation. In early 1997 Minister of Science Benny Begin had broken from the Likud to form Herut – The National Movement, a group opposed to the Wye Plantation agreement of that year and the ceding of most of Hebron to Palestinian Authority control, and brought with him fellow Likud members David Re'em and Michael Kleiner. Also, a year after Levy left the Likud, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai left the Likud to form Israel in the Center, a group that hoped to compete with Gesher for moderate voters, and took with him David Magen and Dan Meridor from the Likud.
Levy once again was chosen to be foreign minister, with his deputy being Nawaf Mazalha (One Israel), an Arab Israeli with less experience. The end result was, however, Barak's assumption of Netanyahu's policy of meddling in the Foreign Ministry more than prime ministers are used to. Levy was for the third time a passive partner as foreign minister. He quit the coalition in April 2000, both in response to Barak's desperate attempts to move peace negotiations forward, and in protest to the announced plan to withdraw Israeli military forces from Lebanon.
Levy was the first minister in Barak's government to resign when his demands were not met. He reformed Gesher along with Maxim Levy and rookie legislator Mordechai Mishani. Like Netanyahu, Barak failed to preserve the cooperation once enjoyed by his coalition; the leftist Meretz party left in the end of June that year, the National Religious Party (NRP), Shas, and Yisrael BaAliyah only two weeks later. In addition Barak's popularity plummeted following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000. By November the prime minister had resigned in order to bring new elections that would take the form of only a direct vote for prime minister. This hurt Levy, because the format limited the choice in the end to a ballot between Barak, and opposition leader Ariel Sharon (Likud). The vote in February gave Sharon a landslide victory.
The new government offered Levy less benefits than Barak's: Because the Likud held only 19 seats, they were pressured to form a coalition with One Israel, Shas, Yisrael BaAliyah, One Nation, National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu, United Torah Judaism, and the NRP. Sharon was able to form a coalition without Levy, meaning that for only the second time since 1977 he was left without a ministry in a new government.
In February 2002 One Nation quit Sharon's government to protest his disastrous economic parties. Their leader, Histadrut Labour Federation chairman Amir Peretz, has many similarities to Levy, with one of the few differences being that he had broken from Labour and not the Likud. One month later the rightist National Union-Israel Beiteinu quit the coalition, claiming that Sharon's restraint policy was equivalent to appeasing the PLO. This situation allowed Levy to enter the coalition in early April, though with almost no influence; he was named Minister Without Portfolio. Not long afterward Shas was fired from the government and was allowed back in, cementing Sharon's stability as prime minister at least until the end of the year. One Israel quit in November 2002 to force elections for January 2003.
This situation allowed Levy to enter the coalition in early April, though with almost no influence; he was named Minister Without Portfolio. Not long afterward Shas was fired from the government and was allowed back in, cementing Sharon's stability as prime minister at least until the end of the year. One Israel quit in November 2002 to force elections for January 2003.
Levy's position for the elections for the 16th Knesset was precarious. He stood to gain nothing running with Gesher. With the abandonment of the direct for prime minister, the Likud was gaining support while sectarian parties were falling apart. Levy left Gesher and moved back into the Likud, in a controversial act which created a lot of disagreement among Gesher members. In a meeting that was held by the party's members following Levy's move, Etty (Estee) Shiraz, the party's head of communications at that time, was elected as the head of Gesher instead of David Levy, and led Gesher in the elections to the 16th Knesset. Levy and his supporters objected in the petition to prevent Shiraz and the rest of Gesher members from continuing the party's activity, and asked to dissolve the party and relate to his move as a merge of his political party in its entirety. The struggle continued years later, while Shiraz and other members of the party are trying to rebuild Gesher and transform it into a modern social party appealing to Israel's young generation of academics and professionals, and David Levy and his supporters seeking to dismantle it. David Levy was elected as a member of the 16th Knesset but did not get a realistic place on the Likud list in the election to the 17th Knesset and disappeared from the political arena. Shiraz moved to the US in 2003, while the rest of the party's members continued the legal process which lasted a few years. In 2007, the Court decided to dismantle Gesher and the party ceased to exist.
The astounding victory in January 2003 did not play well into the hands of Levy. He was not awarded a ministry in the new (second) Sharon government. The merger left most of Levy's Gesher support intact, and he was able to prevent a renegade faction from splitting off in protest of the party's disbandment. Nevertheless, the Likud had become a bloated organization as a result of its 40 Knesset member result (today a high mark), and his influence was minuscule in relation to right-wing Likudniks like MK Uzi Landau and activist Moshe Feiglin, the leader of the Central Committee faction Manhigut Yehudit. Levy's future in the Likud is not expected to be prosperous, as the right wing has recruited a far greater number of new members than moderates.
Following the Kadima split, Levy failed to acquire a high position on Likud's Knesset list, and as a result of this lost his seat at the 2006 election.
Levy was one of three politicians in the Likud Party--Sharon and current Finance Minster Yitzhak Modai were the others--who fought efforts by the Bush Administration to set up talks to include Palestinian residents of Jerusalem as well as Palestinians expelled from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Levy was a vocal advocate of the need for Israel to be strong, secure, and self-sufficient; such a position, he believed, would ultimately lead to peace. Levy's precise views on foreign policy issues were not well articulated and the evidence does not present a clear picture. He supported the Camp David Accords (1978) and helped to secure their passage in the Israeli parliament. He endorsed Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 1985 and was the only Likud minister to do so. At the same time, in the spring of 1990 he was one of the so-called "constraints ministers" who reduced Prime Minister Shamir's ability to move ahead on the peace plan which had engaged Egypt and the United States in the quest for negotiations to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. In the case of peace with Egypt and of the withdrawal from Lebanon he diverged from the mainstream of Likud to the more moderate left, but in the spring of 1990 he diverged to the more hardline right.
Some of his views on foreign policy became clearer after he assumed the post of foreign minister in June 1990. He rejected the central elements of United States Secretary of State James Baker's plan for an Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. He made clear that he would find unacceptable the inclusion of the Arab residents of East Jerusalem or those deported from the West Bank or Gaza Strip in the peace talks with Israel. He believed this to be a requirement of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and would refuse their demands while saying yes to the United States. Levy was consistent in his strong opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state and to negotiations with the PLO.
Levy established for himself a strong political constituency, based on but not limited to the disaffected and lower-income Sephardic/North African community in Israel. He also developed impressive political skills and a range of experience in various domestic arenas. In 1990 he added the foreign affairs portfolio— providing another crucial element essential to his expected movement toward the position of prime minister.
Deputy Prime Minister
