(, born
18 March 1944 ) is a former
Chief Of Staff of the
Israel Defense Forces , Member of the Knesset and
Minister Of Transportation and Tourism.
Lipkin-Shahak started his military service as a teenager in the military boarding-school in
Haifa . He enlisted as a corporal in the paratrooper brigade in
1962 , fulfilled various command positions and eventually became brigade commander. During his military service, he was decorated twice with the
Medal Of Courage for his conduct in
Operation Inferno , in
Karameh ,
Jordan 1968 as a captain, and in
Operation Spring Of Youth ,
Beirut ,
Lebanon 1973 as a Lt. Colonel. As deputy Chief of Staff, he was involved in the negotiations with the Palestinians under prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin .
Lipkin-Shahak succeeded
Ehud Barak as the 15th Chief of the General Staff in
1995 . As Chief of staff, he continued to take part in negotiations with the
Palestinian s and
Syria ns, in which position he met his Syrian counterpart. Most of his tenure as Chief of Staff was under Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister
Yitzhak Mordechai . His tenure was marked with much public friction between him and his superiors, reportedly due to political differences and personal disrespect (Lipkin-Shahak refused to nominate Mordechai, a Major General, as his deputy when he became Chief of Staff, causing Mordechai to retire from the army and join the political arena, eventually to become Lipkin-Shahak's superior.)
Lipkin-Shahak retired from the army after 36 years of service in
1998 and was succeeded as Chief of Staff by
Shaul Mofaz .
In
1999 Lipkin-Shahak joined the new
Center Party , headed by Yitzhak Mordechai. On this party ticket he was elected to the 15th
Knesset (Israeli parliament), when Ehud Barak was elected as Prime Minister (on the
Labor Party ticket). Lipkin-Shahak joined Barak's government as Minister of Tourism (
1999 ) and later on also as Minister of Transport (
2000 , when Mordechai resigned). Soon afterwards he left his Center Party and joined the
New Way party. When Barak failed to be re-elected in the
2001 special Prime-Ministerial elections (which he lost to
Ariel Sharon ), Lipkin-Shahak resigned from the Knesset.
He is married and has six children. He holds a B.A. in general
History from
Tel Aviv University .
