Mordechai Gazit

Mordechai Gazit was born in 1922 in Istanbul

Mordechai Weinstein, later Gazit, was born in Istanbul in 1922 to Tzipora and Efraim, a family of Eastern European Jewish origin. He was the older brother of Shlomo Gazit. The family moved to the Land of Israel in 1932.

He joined the Haganah at 14 and finished an officers' course in 1943. In 1946 he was picked for the first class of a school for diplomats set up by the Jewish Agency. He earned a master's degree in archaeology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

In 1948 he commanded a Haganah force holding Al-Qastal, where a sentry under his command killed Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni. He later led an effort to bring supplies into the Jewish Quarter of the Old City and was badly wounded there. The wound ended his military career and cost him a lung.

He joined the Foreign Ministry in 1949 and served as a secretary at the embassy in London, then in Rangoon. He was Deputy Director General of the Immigrant Absorption Ministry from 1969 to 1970, adviser to Golda Meir, and ambassador to France from 1976 to 1979. He also headed the Foreign Ministry and the Prime Minister's Office as Director General.

He lectured and wrote on international relations, including several books. He rejected claims that Israel missed a chance for peace with Egypt in 1970 to 1973. He died in 2016.