Binyamin Ben-Eliezer

Binyamin "Fuad" Ben-Eliezer (Arabic: بنيامين بن إليعازر; Hebrew: בנימין "פואד" בן אליעזר; 12 February 1936 – 28 August 2016) was an Iraqi-born Israeli politician and general.

Ben-Eliezer was born in Basra in southern Iraq to an Iraqi-Jewish family, the son of Saleh and Farha Elazar.

[2] In 1977, he was appointed First Commanding Officer in Southern Lebanon, serving as the army liaison between the Lebanese Christian militias and Israel.

After retiring from the army, Ben-Eliezer was briefly a member of the Tami Party, a grouping of Israeli Jews of "Mizrahi" or Middle Eastern origin.

Re-elected again in 2003, Ben-Eliezer served as Minister of National Infrastructure from 10 January 2005 until 23 November, when Labor left the government.

[4] Placed eighth on the party's list, he was re-elected again in the 2009 elections and appointed Minister of Industry, Trade and Labour.

[7] Ben-Eliezer was a candidate to succeed Shimon Peres as President of Israel in 2014, but withdrew after allegations of corruption surfaced against him.

[8] Ben-Eliezer was considered a hawk on foreign policy and was one of the main architects of the invasion of Lebanon as well as a strong proponent for Operation Defensive Shield.