Arie Lova Eliav served in the Haganah, the Aliyah Bet Movement and the Mossad. He supervised Operation Tushia which rescued the Jews of Port Said. He completed his military service with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and went on to earn a Bachelor's degree in history and science. Lova Eliav is a teacher and a sociologist, teaching abroad as well as in Israel. He was a fellow and lecturer on International Affairs at Harvard University and Trinity College.
He served as a Knesset member for 18 years, serving in industry, trade and immigration. He ran a huge rehabilitation project in Iran in a region that had been destroyed by an earthquake and he also headed Israel's rehabilitation mission to earthquake stricken Nicaragua. He was the first person to start a dialogue with members of the PLO and he was close friends with Prime Minister Levi Eshkol. He is the author of fifteen published books and has written numerous research papers and reports. In addition to all of this, he has won over twenty prizes for his contribution to humanity, peace, town developments and other important issues.
Lova Eliav has probably done a lot in helping to develop the Negev. He founded the town of Arad in the eastern Negev and was responsible for developing Lachish and Kiryat Gat. Finally in the 1980's, he had an idea to turn the sand dunes of Nitzana in the Western Negev into a youth village. He saw that the south was greatly lacking in facilities for the youth.