Israeli champion of Palestinian and women`s rights dies

Jerusalem: Shulamit Aloni, a fiery former left-wing Israeli leader and cabinet minister who championed Palestinian and women`s rights, died on Friday, family and colleagues said. She was 85. Aloni founded a civil libertarian faction in the 1970`s after quitting then Prime Minister Golda Meir`s Labour party in a dispute over religious influence in government. Her movement evolved into a tiny party that is still in Israel`s parliament. Born in Tel Aviv, Aloni had advocated the formation of a Palestinian state on land captured by Israel during the 1967 war, long before a Washington-brokered peace process that is still searching for an elusive deal. A 30-year veteran of Israel`s parliament, Aloni served as education minister and later communications minister in the late Yitzhak Rabin`s government in the early 1990`s. Rabin was assassinated in 1995 by an Israeli ultranationalist protesting a 1993 interim deal with the Palestinians. Aloni continued her activism long past her retirement from politics in 1996, demanding at a 2011 Tel Aviv peace rally "the complete end of occupation." She was mourned by political friends and foes alike. In a written statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, head of the right-wing Likud party, said: "Despite the deep differences between us over the years, I admired her contribution to Israeli public life and Aloni`s determination to stand up firmly for her beliefs."