Arie Eldad

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Prof. Arie Eldad, M.D. (Hebrew: אריה אלדד‎, also Aryeh Eldad; born May 1 1950) is a member of the Israeli Knesset and a physician. He belongs to the Moledet party, part of the National Union list in the Israeli Knesset.

Eldad was born in Tel Aviv in 1950. He is married with five children. His father, Israel Eldad, was a well known Israeli public thinker and formerly one of the leaders of the underground group Lehi. He is a resident of Kfar Adumim. He is also an Israel Defense Forces Brigadier-General (reserves).

[edit] Medical career

Eldad is a professor and head of the plastic surgery and burns unit at the Hadassah Medical Center hospital in Jerusalem. He studied medicine at Tel Aviv University, where he earned his doctorate. He served as the chief medical officer and was the senior commander of the Israeli Defence Forces medical corps for 25 years and reached a rank of Tat-Aluf (Brigadier-General). He is renowned worldwide for his treatment of burns and won the Evans Award from the American Burns Treatment Association.

[edit] Political career

Eldad is the second member of parliament of the Moledet party (which is part of the National Union) and was hailed by the Israeli press (including Maariv and Yediot Aharonot) as an honest, hardworking, dedicated lawmaker. He heads the Ethics committee of the Knesset.

Eldad is a Revisionist Zionist who believes in the ideas of Zionist philosopher Zeev Jabotinsky. Eldad supports the right of Jews to live in any part of the Land of Israel and opposes any surrender of Israeli sovereignty to the PLO. Eldad supports Moledet's plan to transfer the Palestinian Arabs to the Arab states. Eldad opposes the creation of any Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan River and called its possibility a "disaster".

Prior to the scheduled Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and the northern West Bank in August 2005, Eldad was the only member of parliament to call for non-violent civil disobedience as a tactic in the struggle against the government. Eldad even walked the few hundred kilometres between the now evacuated community of Sa-Nur (in Northern Samaria) to Neve Dekalim in order to attract attention to the opposition of the Withdrawal plan.

In the February 2006 dismantlement of the Amona outpost Eldad was injured during the confrontation between demonstrators and police as was his ally MK Effie Eitam. The event caused a storm of criticism on both sides, as interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accused them of inciting the crowd to attack the police, and they accused Olmert and the police of reckless use of force. Eldad is the only secular Member of Knesset in the National Union party.