Shlomo Ben-Ami
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Shlomo Ben-Ami (Hebrew: שלמה בן עמי; born July 17, 1943) is an Israeli diplomat, politician and historian.
Ben-Ami was born in Tangier, Morocco to Sephardic Jewish parents. He immigrated to Israel in 1955.
He was educated at Tel-Aviv University and Oxford University (England) from which he received a Ph.D. in History. He was a historian at Tel-Aviv University from the mid-1970's, serving as head of the School of History from 1982 to 1986. His initial field of study was Spanish history, but later he turned to the history of Israel and the Middle East. From 1987 until 1991, before he entered politics, he was Israel's ambassador to Spain. In 1996 he was elected to the Knesset.
When the Labor Party government of Ehud Barak took office in July 1999, Ben-Ami became the Minister of Public Security. In August 2000, when David Levy resigned as foreign minister of Israel during talks with Palestinian leaders in the United States, Barak designated Ben-Ami to be the acting foreign minister. He was officially appointed foreign minister in November 2000. Meanwhile, the Or Commission held him responsible for the behavior of security forces during the October 2000 riots in which Arabs were killed by Israeli police, in his capacity as security minister. However, he was not considered to be a hard-liner in Israeli relations with the Palestinians. During his time in the Barak government, he was a political rival of Shimon Peres.
Ben-Ami remained foreign minister and security minister until March 2001, when, having won elections, the government of Ariel Sharon took office. Ben-Ami refused to serve in the Sharon government. He became an author of books on Israeli issues. His latest book is Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy (Oxford, 2006). The book challenges many of the founding myths in Israel's modern history especially the ones related to the war of independence and the way it's depicted in the media. He states in this book that:
- “The reality on the ground was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation and at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred.”
Dr. Ben-Ami is currently Vice-President of the Toledo International Centre for Peace (TICpax), an organization located in Toledo, Spain, which, according to its mission statement, "seeks to contribute to the prevention and resolution of violent or potentially violent international or intranational conflicts and to the consolidation of peace, within a framework of respect and promotion of Human Rights and democratic values."
[edit] External links
- Shlomo Ben-Ami Bio at Greater Talent Network (Speakers Bureau)
- The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Process. University of Utah lecture, March 2, 2004.
- Debate with Norman Finkelstein. Democracy Now, February 14, 2006.
- Toledo International Centre for Peace - TICpax
[edit] Select Book Publications
- Scars of war, wounds of peace : the Israeli-Arab tragedy (Oxford University Press 2006), ISBN 0195181581 . Reviewed in The Economist of 9 Feb. 2006, The Nation of April 17, 2006, and Washington Post Book World of June 4, 2006.
- Quel avenir pour Israël? [Which Future for Israel?], in French (Hachette Littérature 2002), ISBN 2-01-279104-2.
Preceded by David Levy |
Foreign Minister of Israel 2000–2001 |
Succeeded by Shimon Peres |