Amnon Lipkin-Shahak

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Amnon Lipkin-Shahak
Date of birth 18 March 1944 (1944-03-18) (age 64)
Knesset(s) 15th
Party New Way
Former parties Centre Party
Gov't roles
(current in bold)		 Minister of Transportation
Minister of Tourism

Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (Hebrew: אמנון ליפקין-שחק‎, born 18 March 1944) is a former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Member of the Knesset and Minister of Transportation and Tourism.

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[edit] Military service

Lipkin-Shahak started his military service as a teenager in the military boarding-school in Haifa. He enlisted as a corporal in the paratrooper brigade in 1962, fulfilled various command positions and eventually became brigade commander. During his military service, he was decorated twice with the Medal of Courage for his conduct in Operation Inferno, in Karameh, Jordan 1968 as a captain, and in Operation Spring of Youth, Beirut, Lebanon 1973 as a Lt. Colonel. As deputy Chief of Staff, he was involved in the negotiations with the Palestinians under prime minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Lipkin-Shahak succeeded Ehud Barak as the 15th Chief of the General Staff in 1995. As Chief of staff, he continued to take part in negotiations with the Palestinians and Syrians, in which position he met his Syrian counterpart. Most of his tenure as Chief of Staff was under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai. His tenure was marked with much public friction between him and his superiors, reportedly due to political differences and personal disrespect (Lipkin-Shahak refused to nominate Mordechai, a Major General, as his deputy when he became Chief of Staff, causing Mordechai to retire from the army and join the political arena, eventually to become Lipkin-Shahak's superior.)

Lipkin-Shahak retired from the army after 36 years of service in 1998 and was succeeded as Chief of Staff by Shaul Mofaz.

[edit] Political career

In 1999 Lipkin-Shahak joined the new Center Party, headed by Yitzhak Mordechai. On this party ticket he was elected to the 15th Knesset (Israeli parliament), when Ehud Barak was elected as Prime Minister (on the Labor Party ticket). Lipkin-Shahak joined Barak's government as Minister of Tourism (1999) and later on also as Minister of Transport (2000, when Mordechai resigned). Soon afterwards he left his Center Party and joined the New Way party. When Barak failed to be re-elected in the 2001 special Prime-Ministerial elections (which he lost to Ariel Sharon), Lipkin-Shahak resigned from the Knesset.

In April 2008, Lipkin-Shahak signed a letter of support for the recently created J Street American pro-peace lobby group.[1]

He is married and has six children. He holds a B.A. in general history from Tel Aviv University.

Military offices
Preceded by
Ehud Barak		 Director of Aman
1986–1991		 Succeeded by
Uri Saguy

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
v • d • e
Chiefs of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces
Yaakov Dori (1947-49) · Yigael Yadin (1949-52) · Mordechai Maklef (1952-53) · Moshe Dayan (1953-58) · Haim Laskov (1958-61) · Tzvi Tzur (1961-64) · Yitzhak Rabin (1964-68) · Haim Bar-Lev (1968-72) · David Elazar (1972-74) · Mordechai Gur (1974-78) · Rafael Eitan (1978-83) · Moshe Levi (1983-87) · Dan Shomron (1987-91) · Ehud Barak (1991-95) · Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (1995-98) · Shaul Mofaz (1998-2002) · Moshe Ya'alon (2002-05) · Dan Halutz (2005-07) · Gabi Ashkenazi (since 2007)
v • d • e
Transportation Ministers of Israel Flag of Israel
David Remez (1948-50) • Dov Yosef (1950-51) • David-Zvi Pinkas (1951-52) • David Ben-Gurion (1952) • Yosef Serlin (1952-53) • Yosef Sapir (1953-55) • Zalman Aran (1955) • Moshe Carmel (1955-59) • Yitzhak Ben-Aharon (1959-62) • Israel Bar-Yehuda (1962-65) • Moshe Carmel (1965-69) • Ezer Weizman (1969-70) • Shimon Peres (1970-74) • Aharon Yariv (1974) • Gad Yaacobi (1974-77) • Menachem Begin (1977) • Meir Amit (1977-78) • Haim Landau (1979-1981) • Haim Corfu (1981-88) • Moshe Katsav (1988-92) • Israel Kessar (1992-96) • Yitzhak Levy (1996-1998) • Shaul Yahalom (1998-1999) • Yitzhak Mordechai (1999-2000) • Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (2000-01) • Efraim Sneh (2001-2002) • Ariel Sharon (2002) • Tzachi Hanegbi (2002-03) • Avigdor Lieberman (2003-2004) • Meir Sheetrit (2004-2006) • Shaul Mofaz (2006-date)