Eliahu Ben-Elissar; Israeli Envoy Aided in Egypt Peace Talks

Eliahu Ben-Elissar, a veteran right-wing politician who helped negotiate Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt and later served as ambassador to the United States and France, died Saturday in Paris. He was 68.

Ben-Elissar’s death from cardiac arrest came as he was preparing to return to Israel after being recalled by Prime Minister Ehud Barak, the Foreign Ministry announced.

Although Ben-Elissar was a political opponent of Barak, the prime minister praised the man who was Israel’s first ambassador to Egypt, saying Ben-Elissar “poured content into the new peace between the two states.”

As a major figure in the office of then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Ben-Elissar was closely involved in negotiations with then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the first Arab leader to make peace with Israel, in 1979.

Ben-Elissar was born in Radom, Poland, and his family perished in the Holocaust. He arrived in British Palestine in 1942 at the age of 10 and later earned degrees in political science and law from the University of Paris and a doctorate in history from the University of Geneva.

He served in the Mossad, the Israeli security agency, before joining the right-wing opposition Likud party, which he represented abroad as a delegate to the Zionist Congress.

When Likud came to power in 1977, Begin appointed Ben-Elissar director general of the prime minister’s office. Ben-Elissar was later elected to parliament, where he served two terms as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

Barak’s predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, named Ben-Elissar ambassador to the United States in 1996 and to France in 1998.

When Barak and the Labor Party took power in 1999, Ben-Elissar found himself representing peace policies with which he did not agree.

“He was a bitter opponent of the Oslo agreement [with the Palestinians],” said his Likud party colleague Uzi Landau.

Still, Barak’s foreign minister, David Levy, did not replace Ben-Elissar. Two weeks ago, however, Levy quit Barak’s coalition because he disagreed with the concessions that Barak offered to the Palestinians at the Camp David summit. Within days, Barak informed several right-wing diplomats, including Ben-Elissar, that they were being recalled.

Ben-Elissar is survived by his wife, Nitza, and two adult children.