Prof. Zeev Sternhell, political scientist and left-wing intellectual, dies at 85

Renowned Israeli historian, political scientist and veteran left-wing political commentator Prof. Zeev Sternhell has died at age 85, Hebrew-language media reported Sunday.

Sternhell, who reportedly died from complications of an unspecified surgery he underwent, won the Israel Prize in 2008 and for many decades was one of the leading voices warning against the erosion of Israeli democracy as a result of the military rule of the West Bank.

The reports did not give a date for his death.

Sternhell was involved in several controversies during his long career as an academic and public figure, including calling the settlement enterprise “cancer” and advocating attacking the West Bank settlement of Ofra with tanks in a 1988 column for a now-defunct daily.

He was a regular contributor to left-wing broadsheet Haaretz for some 50 years and published his last op-ed in April.

Several months after winning the Israel Prize for his decades-long research on political thought and particularly on fascism, Sternhell was injured by a pipe bomb hidden at his home by US-born Jewish terrorist Jack Tytell. He was injured in the leg and hospitalized.