David Levy (Israeli politician)
Encyclopedia
David Levy is an Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i politician who served as a member of the Knesset
Knesset
The Knesset is the unicameral legislature of Israel, located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem.-Role in Israeli Government :The legislative branch of the Israeli government, the Knesset passes all laws, elects the President and Prime Minister , approves the cabinet, and supervises the work of the government...

 between 1969 and 2006, as well as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel
The Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel is the political head of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The position is one of the most important in the Israeli cabinet after Prime Minister and Defense Minister...

, Minister of Immigrant Absorption
Immigrant Absorption Minister of Israel
The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption of Israel , known until 1951 as the Ministry of Immigration , a ministry in the Israeli government.In co-ordination with local authorities, the Ministry is responsible for new immigrants for three weeks after they arrive...

, Minister of Housing & Construction
Housing and Construction Minister of Israel
The Ministry of Housing and Construction is a portfolio in the Israeli cabinet. The ministry was created in 1961, and until 1977 it was known as the Ministry of Housing. Construction was also previously part of the Labour and Construction ministry during the provisional government between 1948 and...

 and as a Minister without Portfolio
Minister without Portfolio
A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry...

. Although most of his time as a Knesset member was spent with Likud, he also led the breakaway Gesher faction, which formed part of Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak is an Israeli politician who served as Prime Minister from 1999 until 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until January 2011 and holds the posts of Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister in Binyamin Netanyahu's government....

's Labor-led government between 1999 and 2001.

Early life

Levi was born in Rabat
Rabat
Rabat , is the capital and third largest city of the Kingdom of Morocco with a population of approximately 650,000...

, Morocco and emigrated
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 to Israel in 1957. He began working in construction and became a leader of Beit She'an's working-class population, composed of many fellow Jews of North African descent, which earned Levy an advantage in his early career as a union activist when he began to campaign for membership in the Histadrut
Histadrut
HaHistadrut HaKlalit shel HaOvdim B'Eretz Yisrael , known as the Histadrut, is Israel's organization of trade unions. Established in December 1920 during the British Mandate for Palestine, it became one of the most powerful institutions of the State of Israel.-History:The Histadrut was founded in...

 Labour Federation's executive body, then completely dominated by loyalists of the governing Mapai
Mapai
Mapai was a left-wing political party in Israel, and was the dominant force in Israeli politics until its merger into the Israeli Labor Party in 1968...

. Levy headed the opposition Blue-White faction. Before 1969 he also served a term as mayor of Beit She'an.

Early political career

Until 1973 Likud had been an alliance of the right-wing Herut
Herut
Herut was the major right-wing political party in Israel from the 1940s until its formal merger into Likud in 1988, and an adherent of Revisionist Zionism.-History:...

 and centrist Liberal parties known as Gahal
Gahal
Gahal , lit. Herut-Liberals Bloc) was the major right-wing political faction in Israel led by Menachem Begin from its founding in 1965 until it merged into Likud in 1973.-Background:...

, which had never had an active role in governing Israel and had always been a weak opposition. Levy distinguished himself as the first of many young working-class members of the party from a Mizrahi (Oriental) background. Until then Herut and the Liberals had been both dominated by right-wing upper-class or upper-middle-class intellectuals, businessmen, agriculturalists, or lawyers.

Levy's rise expressed the surging power of the new rebellion of the Mizrahi Israeli. In 1977, Levy became one of the most strident campaigners in Likud leader Menachem Begin
Menachem Begin
' was a politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of the State of Israel. Before independence, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. He proclaimed a revolt, on 1 February 1944,...

's triumphant campaign that overturned the 30 year domination of Israeli elections by parties of the left. He drove hundreds of thousands of Mizrahi voters to the polls to vote for Begin, whose populist messages struck a chord in their hearts after the three decades of almost completely Ashkenazic Mapai hegemony.

Ministrial positions

From 1977 until 1981, Levy was Minister of Immigrant Absorption
Immigrant Absorption Minister of Israel
The Ministry of Immigrant Absorption of Israel , known until 1951 as the Ministry of Immigration , a ministry in the Israeli government.In co-ordination with local authorities, the Ministry is responsible for new immigrants for three weeks after they arrive...

 in the first two Begin governments. At this time the largest issues he dealt with during his tenure in that ministry were the campaign to liberate Soviet Jews confined to the USSR, and the controversy over the Beta Israel
Beta Israel
Beta Israel Israel, Ge'ez: ቤተ እስራኤል - Bēta 'Isrā'ēl, modern Bēte 'Isrā'ēl, EAE: "Betä Ǝsraʾel", "Community of Israel" also known as Ethiopian Jews , are the names of Jewish communities which lived in the area of Aksumite and Ethiopian Empires , nowadays divided between Amhara and Tigray...

, a group from Ethiopia that had still not received total recognition as Jews at that time. Levy was not as active in the latter effort as much as Defence Minister Ezer Weizman
Ezer Weizman
' was the seventh President of Israel, first elected in 1993 and re-elected in 1998. Before the presidency, Weizman was commander of the Israeli Air Force and Minister of Defense.-Biography:...

 his successor, while the former continued to drag on with very little results. As such, Levy's holding that portfolio was unremarkable.

Levy's more important role in government began during the formation of Begin's rightist government when the Democratic Movement for Change resigned. On 15 January 1979 he was given the Ministry of Housing and Construction
Housing and Construction Minister of Israel
The Ministry of Housing and Construction is a portfolio in the Israeli cabinet. The ministry was created in 1961, and until 1977 it was known as the Ministry of Housing. Construction was also previously part of the Labour and Construction ministry during the provisional government between 1948 and...

, a post he invested a great deal of time in. Levy held the ministry until 1992, and his policies are controversial for their repeated concessions to the settler movements, which the opposition Labour Party branded pure politicking.

The favours that Levy helped organize for the settlers helped pave the way for a major construction boom in the West Bank
West Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

, even though Levy never became a real power broker among the settlers. On the positive side, Levy was able to make housing for most of his thirteen years as minister more affordable (radical inflation in 1984 produced a crisis as property and rent values plummeted along with the Israeli Shekel's). While rival Likud members like Defence Minister Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....

 and Health Minister Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....

 were hit by controversies regarding abuse of their positions, and repeated finance ministers fell, Levy remained stable in the Housing Ministry. Through the governments of Begin, Yitzhak Shamir
Yitzhak Shamir
' is a former Israeli politician, the seventh Prime Minister of Israel, in 1983–84 and 1986–92.-Biography:Icchak Jeziernicky was born in Ruzhany , Russian Empire . He studied at a Hebrew High School in Białystok, Poland. As a youth he joined Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement...

, and Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres
GCMG is the ninth President of the State of Israel. Peres served twice as the eighth Prime Minister of Israel and once as Interim Prime Minister, and has been a member of 12 cabinets in a political career spanning over 66 years...

 he was able to remain untouchable.

Political complications

As a senior Likud figure, Levy, a construction worker with an eighth grade education, was able to enter doors closed to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. These included Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a powerful Sephardic rabbi with inclinations towards Shamir's nemesis, Labour leader Peres, and the spiritual leader of the Shas party. Levy helped Likud court Shas into the Shamir government, until that party pulled out in 1990.

Levy also was the symbolic leader of the young Mizrahi Likud leaders that included former Kiryat Malakhi mayor Moshe Katzav, later President of Israel, and David Magen, mayor of neighbouring Kiryat Gat. In the Likud Central Committee, Levy commanded a huge portion of the members, and was considered a true candidate to succeed Shamir.

In 1987, he met Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is the current Prime Minister of Israel. He serves also as the Chairman of the Likud Party, as a Knesset member, as the Health Minister of Israel, as the Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel and as the Economic Strategy Minister of Israel.Netanyahu is the first and, to...

, then the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

. The meeting, in a New York hotel, was an attempt by Levy to lure Netanyahu into his camp in preparation for the 1988 Knesset elections. Levy viewed Netanyahu as a potential spokesman for him in the Knesset, as he was viewed as a master at rhetoric and debating during his career as a diplomat.

Netanyahu turned down Levy's offer and became a nominal ally of then-Defence Minister Moshe Arens
Moshe Arens
Moshe Arens is an Israeli aeronautical engineer, researcher and former diplomat and politician. A member of the Knesset between 1973 and 1992 and again from 1999 until 2003, he served as Minister of Defense three times and once as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Arens has also served as the Israeli...

 (his former boss when Arens was Ambassador to the United States in the early 1980s). This created a fierce enmity between the two, one that would lead to the decline of Levy's influence in the Likud.

One of the personal qualities that hurt Levy's career was his perceived pompousness, and his obviously shifting policies in regards to the peace process, the Likud's libertarian economic policy, and allegations by and against him of racism. As hard as it had been for a Mizrahi youth to succeed in Mapai, in the Likud there were also many members who held prejudice views against Sephardim, just as there were many operatives working for Levy who held a grudge against Ashkenazim (European Jews). Also, during the Shamir administrations, the Likud caused many Mizrahi voters to vote for Shas
Shas
Shas is an ultra-orthodox religious political party in Israel, primarily representing Sephardic and Mizrahi Haredi Judaism.Shas was founded in 1984 by dissident members of the Ashkenazi dominated Agudat Israel, to represent the interests of religiously observant Sephardic and Mizrahi ...

, the Israeli Mizrahi Movement ("Tami"), Labour, or parties of the extreme right. Levy's public image transformed into a caricature of the stigma of a corrupt clan chief. Nevertheless, his popularity remained untouchable in his native Beit Shean, where today his son Jackie is mayor.

Demotion

As the Mizrahi street drifted away from the Likud, Levy's rivals in the party attempted to minimize his influence. However, in 1990 Shamir faced a major crisis when the Labour and Shas parties brought down his government and coalition in response to his refusal to consider any peace initiatives with the Palestinians. Backed into a corner, Shamir formed a narrow, right-wing coalition. Levy was appointed the Foreign Minister.

Thought to be one of the top four ministries (with defense, interior, and finance), Levy believed that the new post would boost his chances of gaining the Likud chairmanship. Instead it was a disaster. Levy, who speaks Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

, French, and Moroccan Arabic
Moroccan Arabic
Moroccan Arabic is the variety of Arabic spoken in the Arabic-speaking areas of Morocco. For official communications, the government and other public bodies use Modern Standard Arabic, as is the case in most Arabic-speaking countries. A mixture of French and Moroccan Arabic is used in business...

, was a dead weight when it came to important discussions with American diplomats, especially Secretary of State James Baker
James Baker
James Addison Baker, III is an American attorney, politician and political advisor.Baker served as the Chief of Staff in President Ronald Reagan's first administration and in the final year of the administration of President George H. W. Bush...

. His frequent slips of the tongue embarrassed many of his coalition colleagues, and he was quickly lampooned by the Israeli media and public. In contrast to his dedication to clear policies that had been so crucial in Housing, he could not handle the public pressure of the Foreign Ministry where he knew almost no one.

What made the situation a complete disaster was the appointment of Netanyahu as his deputy. While Levy was serious-faced and often vehement in his speech, Netanyahu was a master of sweet-talk and a media darling. In his first term in the Knesset, Netanyahu had earned countless accolades, and during the 1988 election campaign he had dominated as a debater against Labour Knesset candidates. As Levy's deputy Netanyahu shined, being seen as Shamir's supposed right-hand man at the Madrid Conference of 1991
Madrid Conference of 1991
The Madrid Conference was hosted by the government of Spain and co-sponsored by the USA and the USSR. It convened on October 30, 1991 and lasted for three days. It was an early attempt by the international community to start a peace process through negotiations involving Israel and the Palestinians...

.

Anticlimax

As the 1992 elections neared, Levy vowed to crush Netanyahu, and used all of his influence in the Central Committee to clip his rival's wings. The effort was in vain, as Netanyahu wowed the political spectrum when he earned the no. 2 slot on the Likud list after Shamir, while Levy earned the eighth. The humiliating defeat brought to attention how much Levy's support had slipped. Shamir seemed ready to toss Levy in favour of the young ex-diplomat.

Instead the election was a painful defeat that decimated the Likud in general, and ended Shamir's years as chairman. Levy took some solace in the fact that the chairmanship was open, and the person in the best position to take it was himself.

Last stand

Levy's candidacy was supposed to rejuvenate the Likud's Mizrahi voting base, and form a hawkish working class opposition to Labour. Levy's policies on the peace question was moderate relative to Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon is an Israeli statesman and retired general, who served as Israel’s 11th Prime Minister. He has been in a permanent vegetative state since suffering a stroke on 4 January 2006....

, Moshe Arens, and almost all other senior Likud figures.

Again he ran parallel to Benjamin Netanyahu. At that time, right-wing Israelis were launching a long opposition plan to the new prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin
Yitzhak Rabin
' was an Israeli politician, statesman and general. He was the fifth Prime Minister of Israel, serving two terms in office, 1974–77 and 1992 until his assassination in 1995....

 (Labour). Netanyahu took a hard-line stand, describing a doomsday scenario of terror at the doorstep of every Israeli. This tactic hit Levy with Mizrahim, who statistically are less inclined to support peace initiatives, because of his moderate and often pro-peace platform. Netanyahu's victory in the post-election primary was a landslide and led to a revolution in the party. The incredible debts, indulgences, and negligence that throughout the 1980s and up to 1992 had settled over the Likud were blamed on David Levy among others. He was branded corrupt, though Netanyahu, Sharon, and Ehud Olmert were far more famous for their financial tricks than he.

Private faction

Levy refused to accept Netanyahu as the new Likud chairman. The situation in the Likud at the time was stormy. Netanyahu's management tactics were angering many Likud supporters, while his right-wing rhetoric gained the confidence of Sharon, Benny Begin, and the hard-line party members. Levy knew that if he was cowed by his suave nemesis his supporters would either join Netanyahu's camp in order to oppose the new Oslo Accords
Oslo Accords
The Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles , was an attempt to resolve the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict...

, or go the opposite direction and back a more socialist candidate. He also knew that Netanyahu would not be willing to give him one of the top four ministries should the Likud return to power after his disastrous term as foreign minister.

The result was the establishment of Gesher ("Bridge"), Levy's own political party. Levy mistakenly believed he could draw a mass defection from the Likud of parliament members, and such a disaster would lead senior party members in the Central Committee into a panic that would topple Benjamin Netanyahu. What instead occurred was that only David Magen, a rather obscure Moroccan politician and former mayor of Kiryat Gat who served as Minister of Economics and Planning in the last Shamir government broke with the Likud. Though many of Gesher's members were derided by the press as lackeys of Levy, Magen would prove to be rather independent, and later broke with Levy to join the Center Party in 1998 (then known as Israel in the Center).

Gesher never reached the potential Levy predicted of it, and Netanyahu's sensational campaign to topple Rabin helped revitalize the Likud and bring in new members. One disadvantage for the disaffected populist leader was the constant press attention on the Oslo Accords, waves of terror attacks, rumours of negotiations surrounding the Golan Heights' future, and the low priority that the media gave to economic and labour issues. Levy had to walk a fine line between opposing Netanyahu's hard-line rhetoric too harshly (thereby appearing to be an ally of Yitzhak Rabin), and not making enough noise (which would cause his members to lose interest). The idea of joining Rabin's Labour Party openly even in coalition was at that time still unacceptable to many Moroccans and other Mizrahim resentful of the old Mapai that had preceded Labour.

The winning partnership

By Winter 1996, Levy was beginning to break under the stress of his first election campaign outside of the Likud. Netanyahu, similarly, needed as much street power as possible, even if Levy's was significantly reduced from the past.

Since the 4 November 1995 murder of Rabin, Netanyahu was frantically trying to moderate his image from a hard-line demagogue as many bereaved Israelis saw him, into a skeptic who wanted to slow the pace of concessions to PLO leader Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...

. Levy's inclusion would somewhat bring him closer to that goal without forcing him to take a clear stand in favour of the Oslo Accords. The opposition leader was trying to bridge the gap by recruiting the hard-line Tzomet
Tzomet
Tzomet is a small secular, right-wing political party in Israel.-Ideology:The party was the one who first brought the "peace for peace" slogan, which today is used by all Israeli right wing parties and movements...

 (Junction) party of Gen. Rafael Eitan
Rafael Eitan
Rafael "Raful" Eitan was an Israeli general, former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces and later a politician, a Knesset member government minister...

 on the right, as well as the moderate right-wing Gen. Yitzhak Mordechai
Yitzhak Mordechai
Yitzhak Mordechai is an Israeli former general and politician. He served as a member of the Knesset between 1996 and 2001, and as Minister of Defense and Minister of Transport. He retired from political life after being indicted for sexual assaults during his military service and later...

 in the center.

Throughout the spring, Netanyahu and Levy held negotiations, and in the end Levy agreed to establish Likud-Gesher-Tzomet, a joint three-party list for the May 1996 elections. Though the broad-based coalition at the end of the outgoing Knesset included 37 members (three Tzomet members defected earlier to join Rabin's government) even threatened Labour, which had lost two members to Avigdor Kahalani
Avigdor Kahalani
Brigadier-General Avigdor Kahalani is a former Israeli soldier and politician.-Background:Kahalani was born in Ness Ziona during the Mandate era. He studied at Tel Aviv University, gaining a B.A. in History, before going on to Haifa University, where he studied for an M.A. in Political Science...

's The Third Way, a group opposed to any compromise on the Golan Heights.

Though a massive success for Netanyahu, the 1996 elections gained very little for Levy in terms of power within Likud-Gesher-Tzomet. The real no. 2 leader in the Likud was now Mordechai, and the right-wing character of the government was clear from the start. Levy also demanded the Foreign Ministry, which he received, even without being blunted by a deputy. He believed that this way he could remain totally in control of the ministry, but instead he was again overshadowed by Netanyahu, who controlled almost every important foreign policy decision during his term. David Magen was given the post of Deputy Minister of Finance, under Prof. Yuval Ne'eman.

Netanyahu's term as prime minister became a stormy period for Levy and other coalition partners. The Bar-On Affair, an attempt to alter the investigation of Shas leader Aryeh Deri
Aryeh Deri
Aryeh Deri is an Israeli politician, and former leader of Israel's Shas Party.-Biography:After Deri was convicted of taking $155,000 in bribes while serving as Interior Minister and given a three-year jail sentence in 2000, he was replaced by Eli Yishai...

, created tension amongst the partners, as did Netanyahu's unclear policies on peace negotiations. The economic policies of Yaakov Ne'eman hurt the Likud's image with the working class, as despite a fall in terror attacks and the adoption of a deregulation agenda, unemployment grew while growth shrank.

Temporary defection

On 6 January 1998 David Levy quit the coalition along with former ambassador to France and Channel 2 chairman Yehuda Lancry and his brother and former Lod mayor Maxim. Gesher was once again totally independent, and Levy drifted closer to the policies of the Labour Party and opposition leader Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak is an Israeli politician who served as Prime Minister from 1999 until 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until January 2011 and holds the posts of Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister in Binyamin Netanyahu's government....

. The total lack of progress on the peace front had created cracks in his enemy Netanyahu's foundation. In early 1997 Minister of Science Benny Begin had broken from the Likud to form Herut – The National Movement, a group opposed to the Wye Plantation agreement of that year and the ceding of most of Hebron
Hebron
Hebron , is located in the southern West Bank, south of Jerusalem. Nestled in the Judean Mountains, it lies 930 meters above sea level. It is the largest city in the West Bank and home to around 165,000 Palestinians, and over 500 Jewish settlers concentrated in and around the old quarter...

 to Palestinian Authority control, and brought with him fellow Likud members David Re'em
David Re'em
David Re'em is a former Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud and Herut – The National Movement between 1996 and 1999.-Biography:...

 and Michael Kleiner
Michael Kleiner
Michael Kleiner is an Israeli politician and leader of Herut – The National Movement.He first entered the Knesset in 1981 as a Likud parliamentarian but, upon then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu relinquishing Hebron to the Palestinian Authority, Kleiner split off from the Likud along with Benny...

. Also, a year after Levy left the Likud, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai left the Likud to form Israel in the Center, a group that hoped to compete with Gesher for moderate voters, and took with him David Magen and Dan Meridor
Dan Meridor
Dan Meridor is an Israeli politician and minister. A longtime member of the Likud party, in the late 1990s he became one of the founders of the Centre Party. He rejoined Likud in the early 2000s, and returned to the Knesset following the 2009 elections...

 from the Likud.

In 1999, a no-confidence vote in the Knesset forced Netanyahu to call early elections for May. Levy had not yet been able to redevelop Gesher's street appeal and was caught with four choices:

1. Back Netanyahu: If the incumbent won Levy would gain far more influence because of the defection of the party's right wing, and if he lost then Levy would be a prime candidate in the post-election primary.

2. Join Ehud Barak: Other small parties were joining the Labour Party in what would eventually be called One Israel
One Israel
One Israel was an alliance of the Labor Party, Meimad and Gesher created to run for the 1999 Knesset elections.-Background:One Israel was formed by Labor leader Ehud Barak in the run-up to the 1999 elections with the aim of making Labor appear more centrist and to reduce its secularist and elitist...

. Levy was sure to get a good ministry in the event of a victory.

3. Join Mordechai: The former general is Iraqi, and therefore was guaranteed to draw Mizrahi votes away from the other larger parties, and his centrist platform was very similar to Levy's, yet he started off with far more support.

4. Run Independently: Gesher would have to generate an administrative infrastructure it did not yet have, and would depend on Levy's excellent connections with local activists, many of whom would take votes from Likud. A gain in Knesset seats would force the next prime minister to reckon with him.

Levy chose the second alternative, because pre-election polls showed a deep slide in Netanyahu's support. Likud had descended effectively from 32 seats in the body, to only 20 with the defections of Mordechai, Levy, Begin and their supporters. He also merged Gesher into One Israel, and became very much a partner in the new coalition's leadership. This angered many former supporters who viewed this as the ultimate treason either to his Mizrahi followers or the Likud.

With the new system of direct election of the prime minister, and a separate election of the Knesset, the number of parties elected to the body increased markedly in 1999 from eleven to fifteen, and the number would only grow as parties subdivided due to political tensions. The winning faction, One Israel, took only 26 seats, a record low for a governing party, though Barak won 56% of the direct vote for prime minister. Netanyahu's Likud was crushed as expected, winning only 19 seats and leading to his immediate resignation from the Knesset and public life.

Slow slide back to the Likud

Levy once again was chosen to be foreign minister, with his deputy being Nawaf Mazalha (One Israel), an Arab Israeli with less experience. The end result was, however, Barak's assumption of Netanyahu's policy of meddling in the Foreign Ministry more than prime ministers are used to. Levy was for the third time a passive partner as foreign minister. He quit the coalition in April 2000, both in response to Barak's desperate attempts to move peace negotiations forward, and in protest to the announced plan to withdraw Israeli military forces from Lebanon.

Levy was the first minister in Barak's government to resign when his demands were not met. He reformed Gesher along with Maxim Levy and rookie legislator Mordechai Mishani. Like Netanyahu, Barak failed to preserve the cooperation once enjoyed by his coalition; the leftist Meretz party left in the end of June that year, the National Religious Party
National Religious Party
The National Religious Party ) was a political party in Israel representing the religious Zionist movement. Formed in 1956, at the time of its dissolution in 2008, it was the second oldest surviving party in the country after Agudat Yisrael, and was part of every government coalition until 1992...

 (NRP), Shas, and Yisrael BaAliyah only two weeks later. In addition Barak's popularity plummeted following the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000. By November the prime minister had resigned in order to bring new elections that would take the form of only a direct vote for prime minister. This hurt Levy, because the format limited the choice in the end to a ballot between Barak, and opposition leader Ariel Sharon (Likud). The vote in February gave Sharon a landslide victory.

The new government offered Levy less benefits than Barak's: Because the Likud held only 19 seats, they were pressured to form a coalition with One Israel, Shas, Yisrael BaAliyah, One Nation, National Union-Yisrael Beiteinu, United Torah Judaism, and the NRP. Sharon was able to form a coalition without Levy, meaning that for only the second time since 1977 he was left without a ministry in a new government.

In February 2002 One Nation quit Sharon's government to protest his disastrous economic parties. Their leader, Histadrut Labour Federation chairman Amir Peretz
Amir Peretz
Amir Peretz is an Israeli politician and member of the Knesset for the Labour Party. He is a former Defense Minister of Israel and former leader of the Labour Party, having left those positions in June 2007....

, has many similarities to Levy, with one of the few differences being that he had broken from Labour and not the Likud. One month later the rightist National Union-Israel Beiteinu quit the coalition, claiming that Sharon's restraint policy was equivalent to appeasing the PLO. This situation allowed Levy to enter the coalition in early April, though with almost no influence; he was named Minister Without Portfolio. Not long afterward Shas was fired from the government and was allowed back in, cementing Sharon's stability as prime minister at least until the end of the year. One Israel quit in November 2002 to force elections for January 2003.

Levy's position for that year's election was precarious. He stood to gain nothing running with Gesher. With the abandonment of the direct for prime minister, the Likud was gaining support while sectarian parties were falling apart. Levy merged Gesher back into the Likud, and backed Sharon in his primary campaign against the returned Netanyahu, who filled in when Shimon Peres resigned as foreign minister.

The astounding victory in January 2003 did not play well into the hands of Levy. He was not awarded a ministry in the new (second) Sharon government. The merger left most of Levy's Gesher supporter intact, and he was able to prevent a renegade faction from splitting off in protest of the party's disbandment. Nevertheless, the Likud had become a bloated organization as a result of its 40 Knesset member result (today a high mark), and his influence was minuscule in relation to right-wing Likudniks like MK Uzi Landau
Uzi Landau
Uzi Landau is an Israeli politician, member of the Knesset for Yisrael Beiteinu and Minister of National Infrastructure. Previously a Likud MK, he served as Minister of Internal Security between 2001 and 2003.-Biography:...

 and activist Moshe Feiglin
Moshe Feiglin
Moshe Zalman Feiglin is an Israeli politician, head of the Manhigut Yehudit faction of the Likud party in Israel...

, the leader of the Central Committee faction Manhigut Yehudit
Manhigut Yehudit
Manhigut Yehudit is a movement started by Moshe Feiglin and Shmuel Sackett to lead the State of Israel with, in their words, "authentic Jewish values." This has been widely interpreted, both by Manhigut supporters and outside observers, as closer to Orthodox Judaism but without a Galut or Exile...

. Levy's future in the Likud is not expected to be prosperous, as the right-wing has recruited a far greater number of new members than moderates.

Following the Kadima
Kadima
Kadima is a centrist and liberal political party in Israel. It was established on 24 November 2005 by moderates from Likud largely to support the issue of Ariel Sharon's unilateral disengagement plan, and was soon joined by like-minded Labor politicians...

split, Levy failed to acquire a high position on Likud's Knesset list, and as a result of this lost his seat at the 2006 election.
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