WMoshe Arens was an Israeli aeronautical engineer, researcher, diplomat and Likud 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 also served as the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. and was a professor at the Technion in Haifa.
WEhud Barak is an Israeli general and politician who served as the tenth Prime Minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until January 2011. He previously held the posts of Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister under Ehud Olmert and then in Benjamin Netanyahu's second government from 2007 to 2013, as he retired from politics at the end of the tenure, though he returned in June 2019 with the formation of a new party.
WMenachem Begin was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, 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, against the British mandatory government, which was opposed by the Jewish Agency. As head of the Irgun, he targeted the British in Palestine. Later, the Irgun fought the Arabs during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine and its chief Begin was also noted as "leader of the notorious terrorist organisation" by British government and banned from entering the United Kingdom.
WBinyamin Ben-Eliezer was an Iraqi-born Israeli politician and general. He served as a member of the Knesset between 1984 and 2014, and held several ministerial posts, including Minister of Industry, Trade and Labour; Minister of Defense; and Deputy Prime Minister.
WDavid Ben-Gurion was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first Prime Minister of Israel. He was the preeminent leader of the Jewish community in British Mandate Palestine from 1935 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, which he led until 1963 with a short break in 1954–55.
WMoshe Dayan was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–58) during the 1956 Suez Crisis, but mainly as Defense Minister during the Six-Day War in 1967, he became to the world a fighting symbol of the new state of Israel. In the 1930s, Dayan joined the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish defense force of Mandatory Palestine. He served in the Special Night Squads under Orde Wingate during the Arab revolt in Palestine and later lost an eye in a raid on Vichy forces in Lebanon during World War II. Dayan was close to David Ben-Gurion and joined him in leaving the Mapai party and setting up the Rafi party in 1965 with Shimon Peres. Dayan became Defence Minister just before the 1967 Six-Day War. After the Yom Kippur War of 1973, during which Dayan served as Defense Minister, he was blamed for the lack of preparedness; after some time he resigned. In 1977, following the election of Menachem Begin as Prime Minister, Dayan was expelled from the Labor Party because he joined the Likud-led government as Foreign Minister, playing an important part in negotiating the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.
WLevi Eshkol was an Israeli statesman who served as the third Prime Minister of Israel from 1963 until his death from a heart attack in 1969. A founder of the Israeli Labor Party, he served in numerous senior roles, including Minister of Defense (1963–1967) and Minister of Finance (1952–1963).
WPinhas Lavon was an Israeli politician, minister and labor leader, best known for the Lavon Affair.
WAvigdor Lieberman is a Soviet-born Israeli politician who served as the Defense Minister of Israel from 2016 to 2018; on 14 November 2018, he resigned because of a ceasefire in Gaza which he characterized as "surrendering to terror." He served as Israel's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2009 to 2012, and again from 2013 to 2015. He has also served as member of the Knesset and as Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.
WLieutenant General Shaul Mofaz is an Israeli former soldier and politician. He joined the Israel Defense Forces in 1966 and served in the Paratroopers Brigade. He fought in the Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War, 1982 Lebanon War, and Operation Entebbe with the paratroopers and Sayeret Matkal, an elite special forces unit. In 1998 he became the sixteenth IDF's Chief of the General Staff, serving until 2002. He is of Iranian Jewish ancestry.
WYitzhak "Itzik" 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 periods.
WShimon Peres was an Israeli politician who served as the ninth President of Israel (2007–2014), the Prime Minister of Israel (twice), and the Interim Prime Minister, in the 1970s to the 1990s. He was a member of twelve cabinets and represented five political parties in a political career spanning 70 years. Peres was elected to the Knesset in November 1959 and except for a three-month-long hiatus in early 2006, was in office continuously until he was elected President in 2007. At the time of his retirement in 2014, he was the world's oldest head of state and was considered the last link to Israel's founding generation.
WAmir Peretz is an Israeli politician who currently serves as leader of the Labor Party, and as a member of the Knesset for the party. He is currently serving as Israel's Minister of Economy. A Knesset member almost continuously since 1988, he has also served as Minister of Defence and Minister of Environmental Protection, as well as heading the Histadrut trade union federation between 1995 and 2006.
WYitzhak 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.
WAriel Sharon was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
WEzer Weizman listen (help·info) 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.
WMoshe "Bogie" Ya'alon is an Israeli politician and former Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces, who also served as Israel's Defense Minister under Benjamin Netanyahu from 2013 until his resignation on 20 May 2016. Ya'alon ran for Knesset in 2019 as the number three member of the Blue and White party, a joint list created by the merging of the Israel Resilience Party, led by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, and Yesh Atid, led by Yair Lapid. Ya'alon now serves as the number two on the Yesh Atid-Telem list that was created following the 2020 Israeli legislative election.