Word: weizman
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...very day of Begin's return, two Israeli newspapers published interviews with Weizman calling for a "national peace government" to replace the present coalition headed by Begin. Though Weizman went to some effort to deny it, the maneuver appeared to be the opening round in a serious challenge by the popular former fighter pilot to Begin's leadership. A broad coalition government was needed, Weizman told the newspaper Ma 'ariv, because "we are at the height of a confrontation with the U.S. such as Israel has never experienced before." But, lest anybody think he was Washington...
Israeli Defense Chief Ezer Weizman, the Cabinet minister who greeted his returning boss Menachem Begin in Jerusalem with a widely publicized call for the formation of a "national peace government," has a well-deserved reputation for speaking his mind. So much so that when he was chief of operations for the Israeli forces in the late 1960s, he was told by Moshe Dayan, then Defense Minister, that he would never become chief of staff. "Too rash, naughty, and always shooting from the hip," said Dayan...
...tall, handsome onetime fighter pilot is still firing away, but he seems to be surviving. Not only does Weizman, 53, now have Dayan's old job at the Israeli defense ministry in Tel Aviv, he has also long been considered a leading contender for Begin's job-which, of course, he says he does not seek. "I'm very happy in what I'm doing," he told TIME last week, "and I can enjoy it for many years...
Quick reactions and boundless self-confidence are Weizman hallmarks. In the planning for the Israeli charge into Lebanon, it was Weizman's idea to create only a limited "security belt" close to Israel's border, and it was his idea later on in the operation to continue the plunge almost all the way to the Litani River, after it became clear that the Palestinians were putting up a hard fight and trouble was coming from the U.N. In the middle of the operation, Weizman explains with his characteristically dry understatement, "the rules had changed...
...inbred world of Israel's leadership, Weizman occupies a special position. His uncle Chaim Weizmann was Israel's first President (young Ezer dropped the second n in his last name in an early assertion of his independence). His wife Re'uma is the sister of Foreign Minister Dayan's first wife. And in Israel's Likud coalition government, he stands as something of a kingmaker: it was Weizman, the second ranking member in Begin's Herut Party, who ran the campaign that gave Begin his upset victory in last May's elections...