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Begin was a great man who lived and breathed for the Jewish
people. He will be sorely missed.
Jem
Following is a short biography of Menachem Begin.
MENACHEM BEGIN
Israel's sixth Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, was born in Brisk
(now Brest-Litovsk), then part of the Russian Empire, on August 16,
1913.
Menachem Begin was the youngest of three children born to Zev Dov
and Hassia Begin.
The Begin family was uprooted from Brisk by World War I and fled
into Russia. At the war's conclusion, the Begins returned to Brisk
and to an independent Poland. Following the completion of his
education at a local public high school, Menachem Begin enrolled in
Warsaw University in 1931 and was granted a law degree in 1935.
A popular orator among Jewish students in Warsaw, Mr. Begin worked
full-time on behalf of the Betar Zinoist youth movement in Poland
following his graduation. He became head of Polish Betar in 1939,
one of the most influential positions of leadership in
pre-Holocaust Jewish Europe. At the onset of World War II, Mr.
Begin encouraged the emigration of thousands of Polish Jews to the
Land of Israel just as the country's gates were being shut by the
British mandatory government.
Mr. Begin continued his Zionist organizational work until he was
arrested by Soviet occupation authorities in 1940. He remained in
Gulag prison camps, mostly in Siberia, until 1941, when he was
freed with other Polish prisoners. Upon release, Mr. Begin joined
the Polish army-in-exile, and was assigned to a unit that was
dispatched to the Middle East. His parents and older brother
remained trapped in Poland and perished in the Holocaust.
Shortly following his arrival in the Land of Israel in 1942, he was
asked to assume command of the Irgun Zva'i Leumi (known as ETZEL,
the Hebrew acronym for "National Military Organization"). In this
capacity, he directed ETZEL's operations against British rule.
Following the reestablishment of the State of Israel in 1948, Mr.
Begin, together with a number of associates, founded the Herut
party. He headed the party's list in all Knesset elections from the
first, in 1949, to the tenth, in 1981, by which time Herut had
joined with several other political factions to form the Likud.
In May 1967, on the eve of the fateful Six-Day War, Mr. Begin was
instrumental in initiating the formation of Israel's first
government of national unity. He served as minister without
portfolio for the national unity government's duration, from June
1, 1967 to August 1, 1970. He was elected Prime Minister as a
result of the elections to the ninth Knesset on May 17, 1977.
Upon taking office on June 21, 1977, Prime Minister Begin told the
Knesset: "Our main aim is to avert a Middle East war. I appeal to
King Hussein, and to Presidents Assad and Sadat, to meet me, either
in their capitals or in neutral territory, either in public or out
of the flare of publicity. Too much Jewish and Arab blood has been
shed in this region. Let us put an end to the bloodshed that we
both abhor."
A series of secret meetings soon were held between Israeli and
Egyptian representatives. On November 9, President Sadat accepted
Mr. Begin's challenge. In a speech before the Egyptian parliament,
President Sadat announced that he was prepared to go "even to the
Knesset in Jerusalem to discuss peace with Israel." Two days later,
Prime Minister Begin formally invited President Sadat to visit
Jerusalem. Arriving in Israel on Saturday night, November 19,
President Sadat was afforded a full state reception, despite the
fact that the two countries were still technically in a state of
war.
Sixteen months of intermittent negotiations followed before the two
countries signed their treaty of peace on March 26, 1979 on the
White House lawn in Washington. The treaty was based on the Camp
David Accords, signed at the White House on September 17, 1978,
following two weeks of intensive negotiations. The Camp David
Accords included two framework agreements, setting forth guidelines
for both an Egypt-Israel peace treaty and a wider Middle East
agreement intended to embrace Israel's other neighbors. That second
element of the Camp David Accords serves as a basis for the
negotiations that were inaugurated in Madrid in October 1991.
In December 1978, Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat were
jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Mr. Begin served concurrently as Prime Minister and Defense
Minister from May 28, 1980 until August 6, 1981. In this capacity,
he ordered the Israel Air Force's successful raid on Iraq's Osiraq
nuclear reactor, shortly before it was to go into operation, in
June 1981. Though this action was widely criticized at the time by
the international community and condemned by the United Nations
Security Council, it has proved, with the passage of time, to have
been an act of foresight.
As a result of the elections to the tenth Knesset on June 30, 1981,
Mr. Begin was reelected Prime Minister.
The second Begin government soon was forced to confront Lebanon's
inability to prevent terror attacks against Israel and Jewish
targets around the world planned on Lebanese soil, and Katyusha
shellings of Israeli towns and villages launched from Lebanese
soil. Operation Peace for Galilee in June 1982 removed the
terrorist infrastructure that then threatened Israel. A treaty
ending the state of war between Lebanon and Israel was signed on
May 17, 1983, but was abrogated by the Lebanese, under Syrian
pressure, less than a year later.
On the domestic front, Prime Minister Begin initiated "Project
Renewal", in which the Israeli government, in coordination with the
Jewish Agency and world Jewry, addressed the long-ignored problems
of Israel's urban neighborhoods and development towns. Inadequacies
in infrastructure, education, social services, housing and
political enfranchisement were corrected.
He also initiated the movement to save Ethiopian Jewry, an effort
that led to Operation Moses in 1984 and culminated in Operation
Solomon in 1991.
Menachem Begin submitted his resignation as Prime Minister on
September 15, 1983.
He authored numerous articles and two books, "White Nights", about
his prison experiences in the Soviet Union, and "The Revolt", a
history of the ETZEL's struggle for an independent Jewish state.
His wife, the former Aliza Arnold, died in November 1982. Menachem
and Aliza Begin were the parents of three children: MK Binyamin
Begin and two daughters, Leah and Hassia. They had seven
granddaughters and two grandsons.
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The following is an editorial from the Toronto Star, March 9, 1992, p.A12
Please redistribute it to whomever you see fit including BBS's, newsgroups,
and other lists, as well as individuals who may have an interest in reading
this.
<Yehuda>
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Begin's Wit and Vitriol
In his six years as a prime minister of Israel, Menachem Begin earned a
reputation as a moving orator. His speeches and letters, compiled by
Associated Press, bristled with both wit and vitriol.
To U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis in December, 1981, on a U.S. arms embargo
imposed after Israel annexed the Golan Heights --
"You declare that you are 'punishing' Israel. What kind of talk is that,
'punishing' Israel? Are we a vassal state? A banana republic? Are we
14-year-old boys that if they don't behave they have their knuckles smacked?"
In a letter to U.S. President Ronald Reagan in the summer of 1982, explaining
Israel's seige of Beirut --
"I feel as a prime minister empowered to instruct a valiant army facing 'Berlin'
where, among innocent civilians, Hitler and his henchmen hide in a bunker deep
beneath the surface. My generation, dear Ron, swore on the altar of God that
whoever proclaims his intent to destroy the Jewish State, or the Jewish People,
or both, seals his fate."
Responding to criticism by then-Chancellor Helmut Schmidt of West Germany in
May 1981 --
"(Schmidt) remained faithful to Hitler until the last moment in World War Two.
He was an officer in his army. I son't know if he was a memebr of the Nazi
party, but he was a good officer, a good fighter in the German army until he
was taken prisoner by the British. He never broke his oath of loyalty to his
fuehrer, Adolf Hitler."
In London, December 1971, answering charges that he was a terrorist in
Palestine --
"Kenyan Mau Mau leaders visit Britain and are called freedom fighters. Cypriots
Irish Revolutionaries, Aden Insurgents. Only I am a terrorist. Is that because
I was a Jewish freedom fighter?"
Referring to U.S. Secretary of Defence Caspar Weinberger's support for a
military embargo against Israel in June 1981, after Israel bombed an Iraqi
nuclear reactor --
"By what morality did you act, Mr. Secretary of Defence? The Iraqis were
preparing atomic bombs to drop on the children of Israel. Haven't you heard
of one and a half million little Jewish children who were thrown into the
gas chambers and poisoned with Zyklon-B gas? Who are you trying to punish,
Mr. Secretary of Defence? Self-defending Israel or aggressive, murderous,
dictatorial, piratical Iraq?"
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