Draft:Eli Landau

Eli Landau (21 March 1939-6 February 2019) was an Israeli journalist and politician. He served three terms as the mayor of Herzliya and as chair of the Israel Electric Corporation.

Biography

Landau was born in Tel Aviv. He graduated from a high school in kibbutz Heftziba. He sered as a captain in the paratroopers brigade during the Six-Day War and the War of Attrition. He was one of the paratroopers who first re-entered Jerusalem's old city and reached the Western Wall. He wrote two books based on his experiences in these wars: Jerusalem Forever and Suez - Fire on the Water. He worked as the military correspondent for the Maariv newspaper.

During the Yom Kippur war, he covered the battles in the Sinai and Golan Heights. He was one of a group of journalists (also including Ori Dan, Eitan Haber, Yishayahu Ben-Porat, Yehonatan Gefen, Chazi Carmel and Eli Tavor) that published the book Hamehdal ("The Failure"), which was the first published after the war containing harsh criticisms of its failures and descriptions from the battles of the casualties and loss of materiel.

In 1971, Landau was suspected of involvement in the breaking in of the warehouses of "Hagarin" company with Shimon Rimon, he was charged and acquitted after four years. In 1974 the Tel Aviv district court convicted Landau of having an unlicensed weapon and handed down a conditional sentence of three months imprisonment.

He was a longtime associate of Ariel Sharon, and was politically active. From 1979 to 1981 he was an aide to Sharon in his roles as minister of agriculture and assistant minister of defence. Afterwards, he was chair of the Shekem - then a state-owned chain of canteens and convenience stores operated on military bases.

In 1983, he was elected mayor of Herzliya and was subsequently re-elected twice to this role, serving until 1998. He initiated the construction of the Herzliya Marina, and the transition of Herzliya's industrial zone to a high-tech center. During his tenure, the sporting area football stadium, Olympic shooting range, country club and Air Force House (which contains the arts auditorium) were constructed. He supported Professor Uriel Reichman's initiative to establish the Interdisciplinary Center.

At the end of his tenure as mayor, he was appointed chair of the Israel Electric Corporation, which he held until 2004.

Eli Landau's political leanings shifted, starting from his joining the Herut movement in 1969 and aiding the establishment of settlements, as an aide to hte minister of Agriculture. Subsequently, he tookthe position that there must be dialogue with the Palestinians, to the point of leaving the Likud and running in the 1992 elections as the second person on Yitzchak Modai's "New Liberal Party" list, which did not clear the electoral threshold. He returned to participate in the Likud primaries in 1996, and after he did not achieve a realistic place on the Likud list, chose to end his career in electoral politics.

Due to claims of improper processes in the construction of the Herzliya Marina, Landau was charged and acquitted in court. He was investigated by the police, on a suspicion of involvement in the publication of secret recordings that led to Yosef Paritzky's dismissal as Minister for National Infrastructure.

In 2006, a criminal investigation was opened into whether Landau had illegally appointed relatives to the Electric Company, and into improper handling of tenders. "The Coal Company", a subsidiary of the electric company had initiated a tender for transporting coal to Israel. The suspicion arose that Landau had caused his friend Yuli Ofer's shipping company to be chosen. The Ofer brother's won the contract, and the investigation was closed due to lack of guilt.

He was married to Liora, a businesswomen in the Israeli television and film industry and the daughter of Oved Ben-Ami.

In February 2020, the road which follows the coast in Herzliya was named after him.