Ayelet Shaked

Template:Infobox member of the Knesset Ayelet Shaked (Template:Lang-he-n; born 7 May 1976) is an Israeli politician and computer engineer. She is a member of the Knesset for the Jewish Home in the 2013 Knesset elections, and currently holds third place on the party's list.

She is a secular politician, who began her career in the Tel Aviv hi-tech industry. On 6 May 2015, it was reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed to appoint Shaked as justice minister as part of a plan to form a new coalition government.

Early life and career

Ayelet Shaked was born Ayelet Ben Shaul in Tel Aviv, to an upper-middle-class family. Her mother was Ashkenazi (whose family immigrated from Russia in the 1880s) and politically left wing; her father was an Iraqi Jew and voted Likud. She grew up in the Bavli neighbourhood of Tel Aviv. She served in the IDF as an infantry instructor in the Golani Brigade.

At Tel Aviv University, she obtained a BSc in electrical engineering and computer science. She began her career in the Tel Aviv high-tech industry, working as a software engineer at Texas Instruments, later becoming manager of marketing at Texas Instruments.

Ayelet Shaked with Reuven Rivlin, President of Israel in consultations after the elections, March 23, 2015

Public career

From 2006 to 2008, she was office director for the office of Benjamin Netanyahu. From 2010 to 2012, she established My Israel with Naftali Bennett.

From the end of 2011, she campaigned against illegal immigration from Africa to Israel, saying that it poses a threat to the state and also involves severe economic damage. She also campaigned against Galei Tzahal saying it had a "left leaning agenda".

In January 2012 Shaked was elected to serve as the coordinator of Likud; however, in June 2012 she resigned. On November 14, 2012 she took third place in the Knesset party primaries, and after their joining with HaIhud HaLeumi she was placed in the fifth spot in the joint register for elections for the 19th Knesset. The Bayit Yehudi list won 12 seats, and Shaked became the only secular Member of Knesset representing the party in the Knesset.

In the 19th Knesset she is a member of the following committees: Economic Affairs, House Committee, Committee on Foreign Workers and is an Alternate Member in the Finance Committee.

She chairs the Knesset committee for the Enforcement of the Security Service Law and the National-Civilian Service Law and the Special Committee for the Equal Sharing of the Burden Bill.

She serves as the head of the Knesset Lobby for Infiltrators, the Lobby for Israeli Literature and the Encouragement of Reading in Israel and the Lobby for Jonathan Pollard. She serves as a member of the Lobby to Promote the Employment of Arab Women Academics, the Lobby for Female Knesset Members, Lobby for Equality in Employment, Lobby for Reserve Soldiers, the Lobby for alliances with Christians, the Lobby for the Hi-Tech Industry in Israel, and others.

Personal life

She is married with two children and lives in Bavli. Her husband is a fighter-pilot. She is secular. She campaigns for women's rights and for the integration of women into the military.

Anti-Palestinian article

On June 30, 2014, Shaked posted an anti-Palestinian article from speechwriter Uri Elitzur on Facebook.

In a speech to members of the Turkish parliament, Prime Minister Erdoğan said that Shaked's mindset was no different from Adolf Hitler's and condemned Israel for "systematic atrocity and state terror" against the Palestinian people since 1948. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the leader of Israeli leftist Meretz party, Zehava Gal-On, criticized Erdoğan for these comments.

In response to the reaction to her posting of Elitzur's article on Facebook, Shaked wrote an op-ed saying that the quote from her Facebook post was misrepresented by The Daily Beast's reporter Gideon Resnick and that his mistranslation was copied by other reporters:

"Resnick actually suggested I compared Palestinian children to 'little snakes,' and accused me of fomenting Palestinian genocide. This vilification was later picked up by several bloggers and reporters, all of whom were convinced of this frightening notion, without even a scrap of fact or truth. ... Perhaps it's his own ignorance of the Hebrew language. All Resnick had to do to make Elitzur's sober, legally minded discussion sound like a speech made by Hitler himself, was to cherry pick words out of context. ... As an aside, I’ll point out that a week later The Daily Beast finally removed one blatant lie from Resnick's original article, where he accused me of being the author of statements I never made."

Awards and recognition

Shaked is the recipient of the Abramowitz Israeli Prize for Media Criticism. In 2012, she was included in the Globes list of the 50 most influential women.

External links

• Video Interview with Ayelet Shaked in 2013 on YouTube - Channel 2 interview (Hebrew)
• Ayelet Shaked on the Knesset website
• Ayelet Shaked on Facebook