Geula Cohen
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| Geula Cohen | |
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| Date of birth | 25 December 1925 |
| Place of birth | Tel Aviv, Mandate Palestine |
| Knesset(s) | 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th |
| Party | Tehiya |
| Former parties | Likud |
Geula Cohen (Hebrew: גאולה כהן, born 25 December 1925) is a former Israeli politician and journalist.
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[edit] Biography
Born in Tel Aviv during the Mandate era, Cohen studied at the Levinsky Teachers Seminary, and gained an MA in Jewish Studies, Philosophy, Literature and Bible at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
In 1942 she joined the Irgun, and moved to Lehi the following year. A radio announcer for the group, she was arrested by the British authorities in 1946. She was imprisoned in Bethlehem, but escaped from gaol in 1947. She was also editor of Lehi's youth newspaper Youth Front, and after Israeli independence in 1948, contributed to Sulam, a monthly magazine for former Lehi members.
She worked for Maariv, and served on the editorial board between 1961 and 1973.
[edit] Political career
In 1972 Cohen joined Menachem Begin's Herut party, then part of the Gahal alliance, and was elected to the Knesset the following year, by which time Gahal had become Likud. She was re-elected in 1977.
Dissatisfied with Begin signing the Camp David Treaty and in particular the return of Sinai to Egypt as a land-for-peace deal, in 1979 Cohen and Moshe Shamir left Likud to found a new right-wing party Banai, later renamed Tehiya-Bnai, and then settling on Tehiya. The new party was strongly affiliated with the extra-parliamentary movement of Gush Emunim, and included prominent members of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza such as Hanan Porat and Elyakim Haetzni.
Cohen retained her seat in the 1981 elections and despite their previous differences, Tehiya joined Begin's coalition. She retained her seat elections in 1984 and 1988, and in June 1990, following a coalition crisis, was appointed to the cabinet as Deputy Minister of Science and Technology.
Cohen lost her seat in the 1992 elections in which Tehiya failed to win a seat. In the same year she rejoined Likud, for whom her son Tzachi Hanegbi had become a Knesset member. Cohen remains active in right-wing politics, voicing her opposition to the disengagement plan in 2005.
[edit] Bibliography
- Story of a Fighter (1961) (Hebrew Autobiography)
- Geula Cohen (1966). Woman of Violence: Memoirs of a Young Terrorist, 1943-1948. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. (Autobiography)
- Historical Meeting (1986) (Hebrew)
