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Levi Eshkol |
Levi Eshkol (help·info) (Hebrew: לֵוִי
אֶשְׁכּוֹל, born Levi Školnik (Hebrew: לֵוִי
שׁקוֹלנִיק) on 25 October 1895, died 26
February 1969) served as the third Prime
Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death
from a heart attack in 1969. He was the first
Israeli Prime Minister to die in office.
Levi Shkolnik was born in the village of Oratov
near Kiev, Ukraine. His mother came from an
Hasidic background and his father came from a
family of Mitnagdim. Levi received a traditional
education. In 1914, he left for Palestine, then
part of the Ottoman Empire, and soon afterward
volunteered for the Jewish Legion.
After
the establishment of the State of Israel, Eshkol
was elected to the Knesset in 1951 as a member
of Mapai party. He served as Minister of
Agriculture until 1952, when he was appointed
Finance Minister following the death of Eliezer
Kaplan. He held that position for the following
12 years. During his term as Finance Minister,
Eshkol established himself as a prominent figure
in Mapai’s leadership, and was designated by
Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion as his
successor. When Ben-Gurion resigned in June
1963, Eshkol was elected party chairman with a
broad consensus, and was subsequently appointed
Prime Minister. However, his relationship with
Ben-Gurion soon turned acrimonious over the
latter’s insistence on investigating the Lavon
Affair, an Israeli covert operation in Egypt
which had gone wrong a decade earlier.
Ben-Gurion failed to challenge Eshkol’s
leadership and split from Mapai with a few of
his young protégés to form Rafi in June 1965. In
the meantime, Mapai merged with Labour Unity to
form the Alignment with Eshkol as its head. Rafi
was defeated by the Alignment in the elections
held in November 1965, establishing Eshkol as
the country’s indisputable leader. Yet
Ben-Gurion, drawing on his influence as Israel's
founding father, continued to undermine Eshkol’s
authority throughout his term as Prime Minister,
portraying him as a spineless politician
incapable of addressing Israel's security
predicament.
Eshkol’s first term in office saw continuous
economic growth, epitomized by the opening of
the National Water Carrier system in 1964. His
and Finance Minister Pinchas Sapir's subsequent
"soft landing" of the overheated economy by
means of recessive policies precipitated a
drastic slump in economic activity. Israel’s
centralized planned economy lacked the
mechanisms to self-regulate the slowdown which
reached levels higher than expected. Eshkol
faced growing domestic unrest as unemployment
reached 12% in 1966, yet the recession
eventually served in healing fundamental
economic deficiencies and helped fuel the
ensuing recovery of 1967-1973.
 Upon
being elected into office, Levi Eshkol fulfilled
Ze'ev Jabotinsky's wish and brought his body to
Israel where he was buried.
Eshkol worked to improve Israel’s foreign
relations, establishing diplomatic relations
with West Germany in 1965, as well as cultural
ties with the Soviet Union which also allowed
some Soviet Jews to immigrate to Israel. He was
the first Israeli Prime Minister invited on an
official state visit to the United States in May
1964. The special relationship he developed with
President Lyndon Johnson would prove pivotal in
securing US political and military support for
Israel during the build-up preceding the Six Day
War of June 1967. Today, Eshkol’s intransigence
in the face of military pressure to launch an
Israeli attack is considered to have been
instrumental in increasing Israel’s strategic
advantage as well as obtaining international
legitimacy, yet at the time he was perceived as
hesitant, an image cemented following a dismally
stuttered radio speech on May 28. With Egyptian
President Nasser's ever more overt provocations,
he eventually succumbed to public opinion and
established a National Unity Government together
with Menachem Begin's Herut party, reluctantly
conceding the Defense portfolio to war hero
Moshe Dayan, a close ally of Ben-Gurion’s and a
member of his Rafi party. Israel’s overwhelming
victory allowed Eshkol to remain Prime Minister
despite never receiving recognition for his role
in achieving it. In the years following the war
he slowly receded due to ill health, and died
while in office in February 1969.
The Eshkol National Park near Beersheba has been
named after him. |
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