TEL AVIV -- Former Israeli President Ezer Weizman, a flying acewho helped bring about the Jewish state's first peace treaty with anArab country, died Sunday. He was 80.
Mr. Weizman, president from 1993 to 2000, had suffered fromrespiratory infections in recent months. He died Sunday night at hishome in the northern Israeli resort town of Caesarea, according to astatement by his successor, President Moshe Katsav.
Israeli radio said services are tentatively scheduled for Tuesday.
In three decades in political life, Mr. Weizman made a highlypublic transition from hawk to dove, saying Jews had to learn to"share this part of the world" with Arabs.
As defense minister in 1979, he was instrumental in negotiatingIsrael's peace treaty with Egypt.
Mr. Weizman, a political moderate, later resigned from then-PrimeMinister Menachem Begin's Cabinet, complaining about Begin's strictinterpretation of interim peace accords with Egypt.
Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres, a onetime political ally, saidMr. Weizman was unique. "In war, he showed incredible bravery, andwhen peace appeared on the horizon, he enlisted for it," Peres said.
Mr. Weizman was born in Haifa on June 15, 1924. His uncle ChaimWeizmann was Israel's first president.
He learned to fly at 16 and in World War II underwent flighttraining in the British army, later serving as a fighter pilot inEgypt and India. Returning to Palestine in 1946, he became one of theIsraeli army's first pilots.
In 1969, he retired from the military and joined the nationalistHerut Party. He was appointed transportation minister in thecoalition government of Golda Meir but lost his job when Herut, whichlater became the Likud bloc, walked out of the Cabinet in 1970.
Invited Arafat
In 1977, Mr. Weizman headed the campaign that launched the right-wing Begin to power after the 29-year reign of the Labor Party.
On Dec. 20 of that year, Mr. Weizman made a secret trip to Egypt.That trip -- and the friendship he formed with Egyptian PresidentAnwar Sadat -- served as a catalyst to the negotiations thatculminated in the U.S.-sponsored Camp David agreements between Israeland Egypt in 1978.
That same year, he resigned abruptly from Begin's Cabinet becausehe failed to win government approval for a plan to grant Palestiniansautonomy in the occupied West Bank -- one of the major points of theCamp David accords.
Mr. Weizman believed in the need to expand the peace with Egypt toinclude Jordan and Israel's other neighbors. It constituted a pillarof his platform when he returned to politics in the 1984 elections atthe head of the centrist Yahad (Together) Party.
He won only two seats in parliament and joined forces with PrimeMinister Peres' Labor Party.
After the Palestinian uprising began in 1987, Mr. Weizman brokeparty lines and advocated negotiations with the Palestine LiberationOrganization, then outlawed in Israel as a terrorist organization,and its leader, Yasser Arafat.
Israeli peace crusaders were delighted when Mr. Weizman waselected president in 1993. But when Israel signed a peace accord withthe PLO later that year, he said it was done in haste. After a seriesof deadly suicide bombs by Islamic militants, Mr. Weizman defied theLabor government line by calling for the suspension of peace talks.
After the election of hard-line Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuin 1996, however, Mr. Weizman pushed Netanyahu to meet with Arafat byinviting the Palestinian leader to a meeting at the president'sseaside villa -- Arafat's first public visit to Israel.
AP
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