Ephraim Eitam

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Template:Cleanup-date Image:Ephraim Eitam.jpg Ephraim (Efi, Effie) Eitam (Fein) אפי איתם is an Israeli religious Zionist politician. Eitam is a Knesset member and the former leader of the Mafdal - National Religious Party of Israel.

He is a Brigadier General (reserves) in the Israeli Defence Forces, and is considered a war hero by the State of Israel. He earned a medal of honor עיטור המופת in the Yom Kippur War.

Born in 1952 in Kibbutz Ein Gev and receiving secular education, Eitam joined the Israeli Defence Forces and became a prominent officer. During his military service he became an orthodox Jew ( חזר בתשובה ). Eitam has M.A. in Political Science and International Relations. He is married with 8 children and lives in Moshav Nov in the Golan Heights.

1 Military career
2 Political career
3 Cabinet portfolios
4 External links

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Military career

Brigadier General (1971-2001).
Commanded Sayeret Golani in Operation Entebbe.
Commanded an infantry battalion in Operation Litani.
Commanded an officers' school battalion during Operation Peace for Galilee (1982).
Commanded the Givati Brigade during the first Intifada.
Awarded Medal of Distinguished Service ( עיטור המופת ) during Yom Kippur War, where on October 7, Eitam and his sergant stopped Syrian tanks from penetrating the Golan Heights's Nafah, using 3 Bazooka bombs and heavy machine gun and later rescued the wounded from Nafah.

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Political career

After his retirement from military service, Eitam - one of the most senior religious combat officers - was hinted as the future leader of the Religious Zionism. Eitam is very hawkish and straight in his approach. He is very loyal to his ideology and unwilling to compromise it - even as a political scheme. He is often criticized for this approach mainly by his internal political rival Zvulon Orlev from Mafdal and the left wing. The Israeli left wing "loves to hate" Eitam and sees him as a nationalist zealot and a fanatic self-proclaimed Messiah, this is due to an interview in which was quoted as saying "I have a dream to lead the entire Israeli people. I think it is my destiny". Eitam usual answer to his critics is "I came to lead, not to do petty politics."

Maariv's chief editor Amnon Dankner wrote on Effie Eitam:

Effie Eitam is one of those figures that the Israeli Left has for years been nurturing as its pet-hate. He was swathed in a pall as being responsible for exaggerated beatings during the days of the first Intifada.

... he is a land-grabber, "one of ours" – a kibbutznik from Ein Gev turned zealously religious and nationalistic and he is surrounded by an unpleasant aura of irrationality, like one who sees himself in an almost-messianic light.

Despite all this, it was a fascinating experience to watch him on TV's "New Evening" program two days ago confronting Meretz MK Avshalom (Abu) Vilan in a reasonable, measured and humane manner, demonstrating restraint and deep pain, fitting for someone discussing such a painful issue – the lethal attack in Rafah. In contrast, Vilan was hysterical, loud, condescending and irrational.

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2002

In 2002, Eitam joined Mafdal and was elected as its leader. On March, 2002 - Eitam and Mafdal joined Ariel Sharon's first government and encouraged him to increase military operations against terror and order a large counter terror operation aimed at thoroughly destroying the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank. March's 135 Israeli casualties of Palestinian suicide bombings, climaxed at the Passover massacre, along with Mafdal's increasing pressure forced Sharon to order Operation Defensive Shield. The grand military operation, with 29 fallen Israeli soldiers and over fifty Palestinian terrorists, was a drastic change in the course of the al-Aqsa Intifada and perceived by many Israelis as the turning point in which the IDF began overcoming terror. Since than, the rate of successful Palestinian attacks has sharply decreased.

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2003 and hence

On March, 2003, Eitam agreed to join the second Sharon's government with Likud, Shinui and the National Union on the following base principles:

Hard line policy against Palestinian terrorism and increasing use of the military for counter terror operations.
Supporting the Road Map for Peace, but on reservation that the Palestinians should stop terror and replace Yasser Arafat with a democratically chosen Prime Minister.
Supporting the Israeli West Bank barrier, on condition that it will include the major settlement blocks in the West Bank.
Finding a solution to people who can't marry according to Jewish law in something similar to civil marriage.
Drafting the ultra-orthodox Jews to military service like the rest of the people.
Keeping the Jewish character of the state of Israel intact.
Obligation that Shinui won't commit unilateral actions in state & religion affairs, but rather will talk out issue with Mafdal and reach a compromise.

Following Sharon's Israel's unilateral disengagement plan of 2004 from the Gaza Strip which hints at the removal of Jewish settlements from the strip, Efi Eitam and Rabbi Itzhak Levi resigned from the government and quit the coalition. See Current Status of Mafdal for further discussion.

Although Eitam is strongly opposed to the removal of settlements, he was the first to publicly condemn calls to refuse orders and to violently opposing the dismantling of a settlements. [2]

In October 2005 Eitam opposed an Israeli supreme court ruling that banned the IDF from using Palestinians as human shields (the "Neighbour procedure" נוהל שכן), stating that "Supreme court judges demonstrated today that their pity for the cruel will prove cruel to the merciful and will expose [Israeli] soldiers to more danger". [3]

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Eitam vs Orlev

See here (proper discussion under the same name in Zevulun Orlev's article).

National Union

On 2004 Eitam and Rabbi Levi quit the government as a protest over the disengagement plan. However, the National Religious Party (NRP) refused to leave the coalition. Eventually, Eitam and Levi left the NRP too and formed "Renewed National Religious Zionist Party". On 2005 they joined the National Union - a Knesset list of right-wing parties.

On February 2 2006 Eitam was assulted by Israeli police horseman, who tried to disprese a protest of thousand of settler which tried to prevent house demolition in the Israeli settlement of Amona. The protest quickly escelated to a violent confrontation between the police and the protesters: the police used horsemen and hit people with battons on their heads while the protesters threw stones on the cops. Eitam tried to calm thing down but was knocked unconscious after a police horseman struck his head with a police-batton. Eitam was hospitalized in minor condition. Eitam later accused the police that they followed a direct order from the temporary prime minister Ehud Olmert to use "brutal violence" against the protestors.

On February 9 2006 the National Union formed a joint-list with the NRP, Eitam's former party.

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