Zvi Elpeleg

Who is Zvi Elpeleg?

Zvi Elpeleg is an Israeli academic, currently a senior researcher at the Dayan Institute, part of Tel Aviv University. He served as a colonel in the Israeli army, and later received an ambassadorial appointment. He is an academic and author.

In the mid-1950s, he was the military governor of the Triangle and later the military governor of Gaza from 1956 to 1957. He became Israel's first military governor of the West Bank in 1967. He would repeat the role during the Israeli occupation of Faid, Egypt in 1973, and again in occupied South Lebanon in 1982.

He served as Israel's ambassador to Turkey from 1995 to 1997.

He entered academia as an Arabist and, since 1972, he has been attached, as senior researcher, to the Dayan Institute He has authored a biography of Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, which is considered one of the standard works on the man.

Zvi Elpeleg serves as Turkey-Israel Friendship Association chairman and has been appointed as Turkey's honorary consul to Tel Aviv by the former Turkish president Suleyman Demirel in gratitude for the role he played in overseeing Israeli IDF Aid for Turkish Earthquake Victims in August 1999.