TEL AVIV — Former President Ezer Weizman, a flying ace and crack military commander who helped bring about Israel’s first peace treaty with an Arab country, has died, the Jewish state’s officials said yesterday. He was 80.
The Ma’ariv daily newspaper said Mr. Weizman died yesterday evening with his family at his bedside.
Mr. Weizman was president from 1993 to 2000. In three decades in political life, he made a highly public transition from hawk to dove, saying the Jews had to learn to “share this part of the world” with the Arabs.
As defense minister in 1979, he was instrumental in negotiating Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt.
Mr. Weizman, a political moderate who pioneered contacts with Palestinian leaders, resigned from Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s Cabinet in 1980, complaining about his strict interpretation of interim peace accords with Egypt about the Palestinians.
Mr. Weizman’s casual style breathed life into the presidency, a largely ceremonial office, and endeared him to the Israeli public. His vacillation on issues of peace reflected the uncertainty of ordinary Israelis — he cooed dovish when they favored territorial concessions and called for a slowdown when they feared things were moving too fast.
His bluntness and sharp-tongued barbs often got him into trouble with other politicians, who accused him of overstepping his authority.
His last year as president was marred by scandal when he became the target of a police investigation into fraud and breach of public trust.
Mr. Weizman was born in Tel Aviv on June 15, 1924. His uncle, Chaim Weizman, was Israel’s first president.
Ezer Weizman learned to fly at 16 and in World War II underwent flight training in the British army, later serving as a fighter pilot in Egypt and India.
Returning to Palestine in 1946, he became one of the Israeli army’s first pilots and undertook daring missions in the 1948 War of Independence.
He was sent to study at the Royal Air Force staff college in England in 1951 and was appointed commander of the Israeli air force in 1958.
During his term, Mr. Weizman furnished Israel with the best in French fighter planes, modernizing a collection of World War II hand-me-downs into a crack force that destroyed most of the Egyptian air force within three hours of the outbreak of the 1967 Middle East war.
In 1969, he retired from the army and joined the nationalist Herut Party. He was appointed minister of transportation in the coalition government of Golda Meir but lost his job when Herut, which later became the Likud bloc, walked out of the Cabinet in 1970.
In 1977, Mr. Weizman led the election campaign that launched Mr. Begin to power after the 29-year reign of the rival Labor Party.
On Dec. 20 of that year, he made a secret trip to Egypt. That trip served as a catalyst to the negotiations that culminated in the U.S.-sponsored Camp David agreements between Israel and Egypt in 1978.
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