Arne Melchior was born on October 22, 1924, and died on September 24, 2016.
He was a Danish politician of Jewish descent and supporter of Jewish causes. He was the son of Marcus Melchior.
He was active in the Social Democratic Party but left this party in 1973 to co-found the Centre Democrats.
Arne was a member of Danish Parliament during 1973-75 and again 1977-2001.
Arne Melchior was the minister of traffic in the Conservative Poul Schlüter coalition government from 1982-86, and Minister for Communication and Tourism in the Social Democratic Poul Nyrup Rasmussen coalition government from 1993-94.
Melchior represented his party in parliament’s Foreign Policy Committee 1994-2001, when he was forced to step down after having publicly defended Israel’s use of moderate physical coercion on terror suspects.
Later, Arne Melchior chose to leave the Centre Democratic Parliamentary group.
However, the Centre Democrats lost their representation in parliament in the parliamentary election of 2001.
The party broke up on 1 February 2008.
Arne Melchior passed away at 91 years old.