Communications Minister Gad Ya’acobi was chosen Monday to replace Ezer Weizman as a Labor Party member of the powerful Inner Cabinet, composed of six senior ministers each from Labor and the Likud bloc.
He was to attend his first meeting of the government’s top policy-making body on Wednesday.
Weizman resigned Jan. 2, in a deal that allowed him to retain his portfolio as minister of science and development in the larger Cabinet.
He had been summarily fired from the government by Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on Dec. 31, because of his alleged contacts with officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The compromise is credited with averting a Labor-Likud coalition crisis.
Ya’acobi, a 54-year-old Tel Aviv University graduate with degrees in economics and political science, was the choice of Vice Premier Shimon Peres, the Labor Party leader, to succeed Weizman, Shamir assented.
Ya’acobi has served as a minister in previous governments and as a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. He was also a member of the Israeli delegations to the United Nations and to the Council of Europe.
Ya’acobi, described as a liberal intellectual, is a published poet. He shares many of Weizman’s dovish views, but unlike the flamboyant former air force commander, who switched to Labor from Likud late in his political career, Ya’acobi is known for his measured, understated style of discourse.
He is regarded as politically closer to Peres than to Labor’s No. 2 man, Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin.
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