Peace Advocate Quits Israeli Parliament : Middle East: Maverick Ezer Weizman says his country is resisting efforts to end regional conflict.

Ezer Weizman, a former Israeli defense minister and fighter pilot who helped make peace with Egypt, resigned from Parliament on Monday after repeatedly accusing the government of dragging its feet in peace talks.

“I have decided to take leave of political life,” the 67-year-old Weizman told Israel Radio. “Once a man believes he is not contributing on the subjects he was elected to represent, in my opinion, he has to go.”

His resignation takes effect Wednesday.

He said he will not run in the June parliamentary election but hinted that he would accept the largely ceremonial post of president when Chaim Herzog’s term ends in 1993. Weizman’s uncle Chaim Weizman was Israel’s first president.

Ezer Weizman, an outspoken dove, was among those who forged the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt. He has repeatedly bemoaned the lack of progress in the U.S.-sponsored Middle East peace talks, which began in October and are now in recess.

A former air force commander, he began his political career with the right-wing Likud Party, which he helped bring to power in the 1977 elections.

During the Camp David peace talks, as then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin’s defense minister, he formed a close relationship with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that helped overcome several impasses in the negotiations. But in 1980 he resigned, frustrated at Begin’s reluctance to act on a commitment to establish self-rule for Palestinians in the occupied territories.

He switched political sides and has represented the left-wing Labor Party in Parliament since 1986. Weizman has not been active in politics since his own alleged secret contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization touched off a Cabinet crisis two years ago. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir had him removed from the policy-making Inner Cabinet.