Mr. Avi Dicter has been a Member of the Knesset since 2006 and is a member of the Likud party. 

 

Head of the Knesset Delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

 

He recently finished serving as Chairman of the Special Committee for Overseeing the Fund for Managing State Revenues from the Tax on Profits from Gas and Oil. From 2015–2019, he served as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

 

In addition, MK Dicter previously served as Deputy Minister of Defense, Minister of Public Security, Minister of Home Front Defense, and the Director of Shin Bet—the Israel Security Agency.

 

Born in 1952 in Israel, Mr. Dicter served in Sayeret Matkal, the elite Israel Defense Forces commando unit. Upon completing his military service in 1974, he joined the Shin Bet where he advanced from sky marshal to a counterterrorism field officer, mainly in Gaza. Mr. Dicter was brought in to lead the Agency's Protection and Security Division and to rebuild the unit following the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995. In 2000, he was appointed by the Government to lead the Shin Bet, a position he held until 2005, during a period that included the Al-Aqsa Intifada or Second Intifada. Mr. Dicter is credited with reforming the Shin Bet to effectively deal with this challenge, which led to a dramatic reduction in the number of terrorist attacks and to a restoration of public morale and safety.

 

As Minister of Public Security, Mr. Dicter built Israel's witness protection program and formed Lahav 433, a national crime-fighting unit modeled after the FBI. He also helped gain passage for the Communications Data Law and implemented the electronic gathering of fast, accurate, and actionable intelligence. This led to the jailing of most of the heads of the largest crime organizations. In addition, during Mr. Dicter's term as Minister of Public Security, he signed cooperation agreements with the US Department of Homeland Security, Canada's Ministry of Public Safety, and ministries in several European countries.

 

From 2013–2015, Mr. Dicter took a volunteer position as Chairman of the Foundation for the Benefit of Holocaust Victims in Israel, which was an extremely meaningful position for him as the son of Holocaust survivors.

 

MK Avi Dicter holds a BA in Social Sciences from Bar-Ilan University, and an executive MBA from Tel Aviv University; he also served as a research fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, DC. He speaks Hebrew, Arabic and English fluently. He is married with three children and eight grandchildren.