Born in
Jerusalem towards the end of the
Mandate era, Meridor is the son of
Eliyahu Meridor, a longtime political associate of
Menachem Begin in the
Irgun and
Herut (which he represented in the Knesset), and Ra'anana Meridor, an associate professor of Classics at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was drafted into the
IDF in 1965 to the air force academy, and after two months was transferred to the
armored corps where he served as a tank commander. He then studied law at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem, gaining an LL.B. He then worked as an attorney at the Tel Aviv law firm of
Haim Zadok & Co. Political career After serving as
Cabinet Secretary between 1982 and 1984 (under Begin and
Yitzhak Shamir), Meridor ran for the
Knesset in the Likud list for the
1984 election. As a freshman member, he was appointed chairman of two legislative subcommittees. He was re-elected in 1988, and was appointed
Minister of Justice in Shamir's unity government of 1988–90 and in Shamir's Likud government of 1990–92. He retained his seat in the
1992 and
1996 elections, and was appointed
Minister of Finance by
Benjamin Netanyahu in 1996. After successive clashes with Netanyahu, Meridor left the cabinet in June 1997. His public image suffered during that period, when he was compared to
Hamlet (for his indecisiveness) and to a
fraidy cat on a popular TV show,
Hartzufim. In 1998, together with several other Likud and
Labor Party members, he co-founded Israel in the Centre, which later became the Center Party. He was elected as a Centre Party MK in the
1999 elections, and was appointed chairman of the Knesset's
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. After
Ariel Sharon became Prime Minister in 2001, Meridor was made a
Minister without Portfolio. During his time in the Knesset he also served as the Knesset observer to the
Council of Europe. Meridor lost his seat following the
2003 elections. After leaving the Knesset, Meridor served as international chair of the
Jerusalem Foundation. In the run-up to the
2006 elections, Meridor received offers by Labor and
Yisrael Beiteinu, but he seemed to harbor hopes of being called to
Kadima's list. However, his inclusion was vetoed by Ariel Sharon's sons, Gilad and
Omri Sharon. He later rejoined Likud, and won seventeenth place on the party's list for the 2009 elections. He returned to the Knesset after the party won 27 seats. In the Netanyahu cabinet formed after that election, Meridor was appointed Minister of Intelligence and Atomic Energy, and Deputy Prime Minister. Meridor ran in the Likud primaries for the
2013 elections, but he failed to win a realistic place on the Likud list. ==Family==