Shlomo Ben-Ami

Shlomo Ben-Ami
Date of birth	(1943-07-17) 17 July 1943
Place of birth	Tangiers
Year of aliyah	1955
Knessets	14, 15
Faction represented in Knesset
1996–1999	Labor Party
1999–2001	One Israel
2001–2003	Labor Party
Ministerial roles
1999–2001	Minister of Internal Security
2000–2001	Minister of Foreign Affairs

Shlomo Ben-Ami (Hebrew: שלמה בן עמי‎; born 17 July 1943) is a former Israeli diplomat, politician and historian.

Biography

Ben-Ami was born in Tangiers, Tangier International Zone, on 7 July 1943, and immigrated to Israel in 1955. He was educated at Tel Aviv University and St Antony's College, Oxford from which he received a D.Phil. in history. Ben-Ami speaks fluent Hebrew, Spanish, French and English.

Academic career

He was a historian at Tel Aviv University from the mid-1970s, serving as head of the School of History from 1982 to 1986. His initial field of study was Spanish history, and his 1983 biography of the former Spanish Dictator, General Primo de Rivera (1923–1930), is recognized as the most authoritative study on this subject. He later turned his attention to the history of Israel and the Middle East, leaving a legacy of expertise in Spanish inter-war year politics.

Diplomatic and political career

From 1982 until 1986, before he entered politics, he was the Israeli ambassador to Spain. In 1996 he was elected to the Knesset on Labour's list.

When the One Israel-led government of Ehud Barak took office in July 1999, Ben-Ami became the Minister of Internal Security, responsible for the Israel Police. In August 2000, when David Levy resigned as Foreign Minister during talks with Palestinian leaders in the United States, Barak designated Ben-Ami to be the acting Foreign Minister and he was officially appointed to the role in November 2000.

Ben-Ami remained Foreign Minister and Security Minister until March 2001, when, having won elections, Ariel Sharon took over from Barak. Ben-Ami refused to serve in the Sharon government and resigned from the Knesset in August 2002.

In their report published in 2003, the Or Commission held him responsible for the behavior of security forces during the October 2000 riots in which Israeli police killed 12 Israeli Arabs and one Palestinian, and failed to predict and control rioting which resulted in the death of a Jewish Israeli. The report recommended that Ben-Ami be disqualified from serving as Internal Security Minister in the future. Despite the disqualification, Ben-Ami was not considered to be a hard-liner in Israeli relations with the Palestinians and during his time in the Barak government, he was a political rival of Shimon Peres.

Ben-Ami is currently Vice-President of the Toledo International Centre for Peace (TICpax), 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."

His latest book is Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli–Arab Tragedy (Oxford, 2006) challenges many of the founding myths in Israel's modern history especially related to the war of independence. Ben-Ami backed the Meretz party for the 2009 Knesset elections.

Later career

He currently serves as vice president of the Toledo International Centre for Peace.

Published works

• The Origins of the Second Republic in Spain (1978)
• Fascism from Above: Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain, 1923–1930 (1983)
• Spain between Dictatorship and Democracy (1980)
• Anatomia de una Transición [Anatomy of a Transition] (1990) (Spanish)
• Italy between Liberalism and Fascism (1986)
• Quel avenir pour Israël? [Which Future for Israel?], (Hachette Littérature 2002), ISBN 2-01-279104-2. (French)
• Scars of war, wounds of peace : the Israeli-Arab tragedy (Oxford University Press 2006), ISBN 0-19-518158-1.

External links

• Shlomo Ben-Ami on the Knesset website
• Column archives at Project Syndicate
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Works by or about Shlomo Ben-Ami in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• The Rise and Fall of the Oslo Process, University of Utah lecture, 2 March 2004
• Debate with Norman Finkelstein, Democracy Now, 14 February 2006
• Toledo International Centre for Peace – TICpax