Aharon Yariv

Aharon Yariv was born in 1920 in Moscow

Aharon Yariv was born Aharon Rabinovich in Moscow in 1920, the son of Haim Rabinovich, a doctor born in Latvia. The family moved to Berlin and then, in 1924, to Latvia. In 1935 he immigrated with his family to the Land of Israel and studied at the Pardes Hanna Agricultural High School.

He joined the Haganah in 1938 and in 1941 enlisted in the British Army, where he reached the rank of captain. In 1948 he commanded Battalion 21 of the Carmeli Brigade and fought in the north and in the capture of Nazareth. He was the first commander of the IDF Command and Staff College, later commanded the Golani Brigade, and headed Military Intelligence from 1964 to 1972, including during the Six-Day War.

After the Munich massacre in 1972 he became adviser on terrorism to Prime Minister Golda Meir. During the 1973 Yom Kippur War he was a special assistant to the chief of staff, and he then led the talks with Egypt at Kilometer 101. On 11 November 1973 he signed the Six-Point Agreement with Mohamed Abdel Ghani el-Gamasy.

He served in the Knesset for the Alignment from 1974 to 1977, as Minister of Transport and then Minister of Information. In 1974 he formulated the Yariv-Shem-Tov formula with Victor Shem-Tov, which called for negotiations with the Palestinians. He resigned from the government in 1975 and from the Knesset in 1977.

In 1977 he founded the Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, now the Institute for National Security Studies, and headed it until his death in 1994. In 1988 he founded the Council for Peace and Security. He was married to Nehama and had a son, Asaf.