Israel’s new ambassador to the United States, Zalman Shoval, has taken up his post in Washington, although he has not yet formally presented his credentials to President Bush.
Shoval was a Likud member of the Knesset when he was named envoy to Washington, succeeding Moshe Arad, who had been ambassador here since July 1987.
Although the 60-year-old Shoval has spent most of his career in banking and industry, he started his career in the Foreign Ministry from 1955 to 1957.
He returned to the ministry in 1978, when Moshe Dayan was foreign minister, as head of Israel’s foreign information activities, a post he held through the Camp David talks and the signing of the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1979.
Shoval has served off and on in the Knesset since 1970. He served first as a member of the Rafi party, founded by former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion when he split off from Labor.
Shoval was born in Danzig, Germany — now Gdansk, Poland — and grew up in Tel Aviv. He received a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of California at Berkeley, and an advanced degree in political science and international relations from the University of Geneva, Switzerland.
He has written numerous articles on political, historical and economic subjects for Israeli and foreign periodicals.
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