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.
Read more about this topic: Shlomo Ben-Ami
Famous quotes containing the words political career, diplomatic, political and/or career:
“It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled.”
—Auberon Waugh (b. 1939)
“An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“The average Kentuckian may appear a bit confused in his knowledge of history, but he is firmly certain about current politics. Kentucky cannot claim first place in political importance, but it tops the list in its keen enjoyment of politics for its own sake. It takes the average Kentuckian only a matter of moments to dispose of the weather and personal helath, but he never tires of a political discussion.”
—For the State of Kentucky, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)