Yitzhak Shamir
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| Yitzhak Shamir יִצְחָק שָׁמִיר |
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7th Prime Minister of Israel
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| In office 1983 – 1984 1986 – 1992 |
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| Preceded by | Menachem Begin Shimon Peres |
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| Succeeded by | Shimon Peres Yitzhak Rabin |
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| Born | October 15, 1915 Różana, Poland (now in Belarus) |
| Political party | Likud |
Yitzhak Shamir (Hebrew יִצְחָק שָׁמִיר) (born October 15, 1915) was Prime Minister of Israel from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992. He was born as Icchak Jaziernicki (Itzchak Iazernitzki) in Różana, Poland (now Ruzhany, Belarus).
Shamir moved to Warsaw where he graduated from the law faculty of the Warsaw University. As a youth he joined Betar, the Revisionist Zionist youth movement.
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[edit] In the British Mandate of Palestine
In 1935 he came to the Palestine and in the same year changed his family name to Shamir. He joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi, an underground Jewish militia organizations directed against the British control of Palestine and inspired by the views of Vladimir Jabotinsky. When the Irgun split in 1940, Shamir sided with the most militant faction, headed by Avraham Stern. in secret contacts with German representatives at Beirut the group offered to open up a military front against the British in the Middle East in return for the expulsion of the Jewish population of Europe to Palestine (Heller, 1995, pp. 85-86). To be sure, though certainly aware of the Nazis being rabid antisemites, Lehi members did not at the time realise that they would go as far as wholesale physical extermination of all Jews.
In 1941 Shamir was imprisoned by British authorities. After Stern was killed by the British in 1942, Shamir escaped from the detention camp and became one of the three leaders of the group in 1943, reforming it as "Lehi". During his tenure, the Lehi was responsible for the 1944 assassination of Britain's minister of state for the Middle East, Lord Moyne; an assassination attempt against Harold MacMichael, the High Commissioner of the Palestine in the same year (Kushner, 2002, p. 348), and the 1948 assassination of the United Nations representative in the Middle East, Count Folke Bernadotte who was seen by Shamir and his collaborators as an anti-Zionist and "an obvious agent of the British enemy" (Gazi, 2002, p. 32).
Shamir and his fellow underground fighters greatly admired the Irish Republicans and sought to emulate their anti-British struggle. Shamir himself took the nickname "Michael" for Michael Collins.
[edit] After Israeli independence
After the successful battle for independence, Shamir joined the secret intelligence service (Mossad) (1955-1965). In 1969 joined the Herut party headed by Menachem Begin and was first elected to the Knesset in 1973 as a member of the Likud (initially a coalition of the Herut and several smaller parties which eventually became a unitary party). He became chairman of the Knesset in 1977, and foreign minister in 1980, before succeeding Begin as prime minister in 1983.
[edit] Prime Minister
Although Shamir had a reputation as a Likud hard-liner, in 1977 he presided at the visit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the peace talks; in 1981 and 1982 he guided negotiations with Egypt to normalize relations after the treaty and directed negotiations which led to the 1983 agreement with Lebanon (subsequently abrogated by the Lebanese Parliament).
His failure to stabilize Israel's inflationary economy led to an indecisive election in 1984, after which a coalition was formed between his Likud Party and the Labor Party, led by Shimon Peres. Peres agreed to be prime minister until September 1986, when Shamir took over.
As he prepared to reclaim the office of prime minister, which he had held previously from October 1983 to September 1984, Shamir's hard-line image appeared too moderate. However Shamir remained reluctant to change the status quo in Israel's relations with its Arab neighbors, and blocked Peres's initiative to promote a regional peace conference as agreed in 1987 with King Hussein of Jordan in what has become known as the London Agreement. Reelected in 1988, Shamir and Peres formed a new coalition government until 1990, when the Labor party left the government, leaving Shamir with a narrow coalition.
In 1991 the Shamir government took part in the Madrid peace talks and ordered the rescue of thousands of Ethiopian Jews, known as Operation Solomon. The Shamir government also decided not to retaliate after the unprovoked Iraqi Scud missile volleys (many of which struck Israeli population centers) during the First Gulf War. The United States urged restraint, saying Israeli attacks would jeopardize the delicate Arab-Western coalition assembled against Iraq. Although long a hard-liner, Shamir left office in 1992, after his government fell amid charges that Likud - by taking part in the Madrid Peace Conference - had effectively agreed to enter negotiations over autonomy in Yesha.
[edit] Electoral defeat and retirement
Shamir was defeated by Yitzhak Rabin in the Israeli elections of 1992. He stepped down from the Likud leadership in March, 1993. For some time, Shamir was a critic of his Likud successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, as being too indecisive in dealing with the Arabs. Later he disappeared from Israel's public agenda.
Shamir's name re-emerged in the Israeli news in 2004 when his family's request for special state funding for his hospitalization in a nursing home was turned down. Treasury officials were concerned of a precedent that would carry too heavy consequences for Israel's weak economy. Also, they suggested that his state pension should be used for his treatment. In June 2006 an extensive report in Makor Rishon reported that Shamir no longer recognises any of his visitors.
[edit] References
- Chomsky, Noam (1999). Fateful Triangle. South End Press. ISBN 0-89608-601-1
- Gazi, Mordechai (2002). Israeli Diplomacy & the Middle East Peace Process. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-5233-4
- Heller, Joseph (1995). The Stern Gang: Ideology, Politics, and Terror, 1940-1949. Frank Cass Publishers. ISBN 0-7146-4558-3
- Kushner, Harvey W. (2002). Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Sage Publications. ISBN 0-7619-2408-6
[edit] External links
- Biography of Yitzhak Shamir at Zionism and Israel Information Center
- Critical article on Shamir by Israel Shahak
| Preceded by: Menachem Begin |
Prime Minister of Israel 1983–1984 |
Succeeded by: Shimon Peres |
| Preceded by: Shimon Peres |
Prime Minister of Israel 1986–1992 |
Succeeded by: Yitzhak Rabin |
| Preceded by: Menachem Begin |
Foreign Affairs Minister of Israel 1980–1986 |
Succeeded by: Shimon Peres |
| Preceded by: Yitzhak Rabin |
Defense Minister of Israel 1990 |
Succeeded by: Moshe Arens |
| Preceded by: Shimon Peres |
Finance Minister of Israel 1990 |
Succeeded by: Yitzhak Moda'i |
| Preceded by: Menachem Begin |
Leader of the Likud Party 1983–1992 |
Succeeded by: Benjamin Netanyahu |
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| David Ben-Gurion • Moshe Sharett • David Ben-Gurion • Levi Eshkol • Golda Meir • Yitzhak Rabin • Menachem Begin • Yitzhak Shamir • Shimon Peres • Yitzhak Shamir • Yitzhak Rabin • Shimon Peres • Benjamin Netanyahu • Ehud Barak • Ariel Sharon • Ehud Olmert |
