Katzav, Moshe (1945– )

Israeli politician and member of the right-wing Likud Party who was unexpectedly elected president by the Knesset (parliament) in July 2000, in preference to the former Labour prime minister Shimon Peres.

A Sephardi Jew whose family emigrated from Iran to Israel in the 1950s, Katzav became the first ever president to be drawn from Likud. Educated at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, he served as mayor of the southern town of Kiryat Malachi in 1969 and 1974–81. He was first elected to the Knesset in 1977 and served as minister for labour and social affairs 1984–88, transport 1988–92, and tourism in 1996. From 1992 he was chair of Likud in the Knesset. Katzav opposed Prime Minister Ehud Barak's faltering Middle East peace initiative and believes in a united Jerusalem, but pledged during his seven-year-term as president to be apolitical.