Yitzhak Yezernitsky was born in the predominantly Jewish village ofRuzhany,[2]Bialystok-Grodno District ofOber Ost, shortly thereafter incorporated into theKingdom of Poland (now in Belarus), as the son of Perla and Shlomo, owner of a leather factory.[3] Shamir later moved toBiałystok and studied at a Hebrew high school network.[4] As a youth, Yezernitsky joinedBetar, theRevisionist Zionist youth movement. Yezernitsky studied law at theUniversity of Warsaw, but cut his studies short in order to emigrate to what was thenMandatory Palestine in 1935. Shamir was the surname Yitzhak Yezernitsky used on a forged underground identity card.[5] Once inBritish Palestine, Yitzhak Yezernitsky changed his surname to Shamir. He later saidShamir means a thorn that stabs and a rock that can cut steel. Shamir initially worked in an accountant's office.[6][7]
Lehi leadership
Wanted poster of thePalestine Police Force for Irgun members, showing Menachem Begin (top row, far left) and Yitzhak Shamir (bottom row, far right)Wanted poster of thePalestine Police Force offering rewards for the capture of Lehi members: Yaakov Levstein (Eliav), left, Yitzhak Yezernitzky (Shamir), center, and Natan Friedman-Yelin (Yellin-Mor), right
Lehi was unable to persuade the Axis powers to lend it support and became widely known as theStern Gang.[9] Yitzhak Shamir was imprisoned by British authorities in 1941.[10][11][12] A few months after Stern was killed by the British in 1942, Shamir andEliyahu Giladi hid under a stack of mattresses in a warehouse of the detention camp atMazra'a, and at night escaped through the barbed wire fences of the camp.[13][14] Shamir became the leader of the Stern Gang,[11] and, together with Giladi, Anshell Shpillman andYehoshua Cohen, reorganized the movement into cells and trained its members. In his memoirs, Shamir admitted in 1994 what had long been suspected: that the killing of Giladi in 1943 was ordered by Shamir himself, allegedly due to Giladi advocating the assassination ofDavid Ben-Gurion, and arguing for other violence deemed too extremist by fellow Stern members.[15][16]
Lehi leadership consisted of atroika of Yitzhak Shamir,Nathan Yellin-Mor andIsrael Eldad. Shamir sought to emulate the anti-British struggle of theIrish Republicans and took the nickname "Michael" after Irish Republican leaderMichael Collins.[17][18] Shamir plotted the 1944 assassination ofLord Moyne, British Minister for Middle East Affairs,[19] and personally selectedEliyahu Hakim andEliyahu Bet-Zuri to carry it out. Moyne had been targeted due to his perceived role as an architect of British restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine, and in particular, thePatria disaster, which was blamed on him.
In 1944 Shamir married fellow Lehi memberShulamit,[20] Shamir had first met Shulamit in adetention camp where she was incarcerated after the ship on which she sailed to Mandate Palestine fromBulgaria in 1941 was declared illegal. They would have two children,Yair and Gilada.[21]
Shamir's parents and two sisters were murdered inthe Holocaust. Shamir claimed his father was killed just outside his birthplace in Ruzhany by villagers who had been his childhood friends after he had escaped from a German train transporting Jews to the death camps,[22] though this was never confirmed.[23] His mother and a sister were murdered in the concentration camps, and another sister was shot dead.[22] Shamir once toldEhud Olmert that when his father, living under Nazi occupation, had been informed that the extermination of the Jews was imminent, his father had replied that "I have a son in the Land of Israel, and he will exact my revenge on them".[24]
In July 1946, Shamir was arrested. He had been walking in public in disguise and a British police sergeant, T.G. Martin, recognized him by his bushy eyebrows. Arrested, he was exiled to Africa, andinterned in Eritrea by British Mandatory authorities. Lehi members subsequently tracked down and killed Martin in September 1946.[25][26] On January 14, 1947, Shamir and four Irgun members escaped the Sembel Prison (a British Detention Camp) through a tunnel they had dug, 200 feet in length, and Mayer Malka of Khartoum subsequently arranged for them to be hidden in an oil truck for three days as it was driven over the border toFrench Somaliland. They were re-arrested by the French authorities, but Shamir with Malka's assistance was eventually allowed passage to France and granted political asylum. Lehi sent him a forged passport, with which he entered Israel after theIsraeli Declaration of Independence in 1948.[27][28][29]
1948 Deir Yassin massacre
During the1948 Arab–Israeli War, Lehi became most famous for theDeir Yassin massacre. From April 9 to 11, 1948 around 130 fighters from Irgun and Lehi violated a peace deal with the village of Deir Yassin and killed at least 107Palestinian Arab villagers, nearly all civilians.[30][31][32] Some villagers who had hidden or pretended to be dead were killed by Lehi men on April 10 or 11.[33] News of the killings sparked terror among Palestinians across the country, frightening themto flee their homes in the face of Jewish troop advances and it strengthened the resolve of Arab governments to intervene, which they did five weeks later.[31]
A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants (240 men, women, and children) and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. ...
During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute. ... Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture ofultranationalism, religious mysticism, andracial superiority.[34]
After the backlash to the massacre, the Lehitroika of Shamir, Eldad, and Yellin-Mor formally disbanded most of the organization on May 29, 1948 but continued to lead a minority of the membership from Jerusalem. Lehi leadership continued to be outside of Israeli government control while most of its former membership joined the newly formedIsrael Defense Forces.[35] During a UN-imposed truce, Shamir, Eldad, and Yellin-Mor authorized the assassination of the United Nations representative in the Middle East, CountFolke Bernadotte, who was killed in September 1948, when Lehi gunmen ambushed his motorcade in Jerusalem. Lehi had feared that Israel would agree to Bernadotte's peace proposals, which they considered disastrous, unaware that the provisional Israeli government had already rejected a proposal by Bernadotte the day before. The Israeli provisional government drafted an ordinance for the prevention of terrorism and then invoked it to declare Lehi a terrorist organisation, consequently rounding up 200 of its members for "administrative detention" (prison). They were granted amnesty some months later and given a state pardon.[36]
Mossad
In the first years of Israel's independence, Shamir managed several commercial enterprises. In 1955, he joinedMossad, serving until 1965. During his Mossad career, he directedOperation Damocles, the assassinations of German rocket scientists working on the Egyptian missile programme.[37]
He ran a unit that placed agents in hostile countries, created the Mossad's division for planning and served on its General Staff.[38][dubious –discuss]
Shamir resigned from the Mossad in protest over the treatment of Mossad Director-GeneralIsser Harel, who had been compelled to resign after Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion ordered an end toOperation Damocles.[39]
Foreign Minister Shamir with US Secretary of DefenseCaspar Weinberger, 1982Shamir meeting with US PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush at the White House in 1990
In 1969, Shamir joined theHerut party headed byMenachem Begin and was first elected to theKnesset in 1973 as a member of theLikud.[40] He becameSpeaker of the Knesset in 1977, andForeign Minister in 1980 which he remained until 1986, concurrently serving as prime minister from October 1983 to September 1984 after Begin's resignation.
Shamir had a reputation as aLikud hard-liner. In 1977 he presided at theKnesset visit of Egyptian PresidentAnwar Sadat. He abstained in the Knesset votes to approve theCamp David Accords and thePeace Treaty with Egypt. In 1981 and 1982, as Foreign Minister, he guided negotiations with Egypt to normalize relations after the treaty. Following the1982 Lebanon War he directed negotiations which led to theMay 17, 1983 Agreement with Lebanon, which did not materialize.
Prime minister
Shamir won the1983 Herut leadership election againstDavid Levy to succeed Begin as leader of Herut, the Likud, and Prime Minister of Israel. Shamir won reelection as party leader in the1984 Herut leadership election, defeating a challenge fromAriel Sharon.[41] His failure to stabilize Israel's inflationary economy and to suggest a solution to the quagmire of Lebanon led to anindecisive election in 1984. Shamir lost the election but was able to retain his post as foreign minister in anational unity government between theLikud alliance and theAlignment led by Prime MinisterShimon Peres. As part of the agreement, Peres held the post of Prime Minister until September 1986, when Shamir returned to the prime ministership and Peres became foreign minister.
As he prepared to reclaim the office of prime minister, Shamir's hard-line image appeared to moderate. However, Shamir remained reluctant to change the status quo in Israel's relations with its Arab neighbours and blocked Peres's initiative to promote a regional peace conference as agreed in 1987 withKing Hussein of Jordan in what has become known as theLondon Agreement.Re-elected in 1988, Shamir and Peres formed a new coalition government until "the dirty trick" of 1990, when the Alignment left the government, leaving Shamir with a narrow right-wing coalition. During this period the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip launched thefirst Intifada, which was suppressed with force by the Israeli government.
Shamir urged the US government to stop granting refugee visas to Soviet Jews, persuading it that they were not refugees because they already had a homeland in Israel and were only moving to the United States for economic reasons. He also termed the emigration of Soviet Jews to the United States rather than to Israel "defection", and called the issuing of US refugee visas to Soviet Jews when Israel was already willing to take them in "an insult to Israel". In 1989,a wave of Jewish emigration began from the Soviet Union after the Soviets allowed their Jewish population to emigrate freely. In October of that year, the US agreed to his requests and stopped issuing refugee visas to Soviet emigrants. Subsequently, Israel became the main destination of Soviet Jewish emigrants. Over one million Soviet immigrants would subsequently arrive in Israel, many of whom would have likely gone to the United States had Shamir not pressed the US government to change its policy.[42]
In September 1989, a journalist for theJerusalem Post asked Shamir, "Doesn't it amaze you that in Poland, where hardly a Jew is left, there should still be a powerful anti-Semitic presence?" Shamir replied "They suck it in with their mother's milk! This is something that is deeply imbued in their tradition, their mentality."[43] The comment caused public and diplomatic controversy withinPoland as beinglibelous.[44][45]Adam Michnik later addressed the comment by stating "the stubborn categorization of Poland as an anti-Semitic nation was used in Europe and America as analibi for thebetrayal of Poland atYalta. The nation so categorized was seen as unworthy of sympathy, or of help, or of compassion."[46]
In a 1996 interview with the Polish newspaperRzeczpospolita, Shamir said the controversy was based on a misunderstanding of what he said:
Once these words were published out of context, I did not find it necessary to straighten them out, because any reasonable person should understand that they should not be read literally. It is known that mother's food does not contain any ingredients that affect the formation of an infant's consciousness when it grows up and begins to think. These words were a metaphor to express the idea that anti-Semitic feelings or views, as well as many other positive and negative feelings and views, come from the family home.[47]
During theGulf War,Iraq firedScud missiles at Israel, many of which struck population centers. Iraq hoped to provoke Israeli retaliation and thus alienate Arab members of the United States-assembled coalition against Iraq. Shamir deployedIsraeli Air Force jets to patrol the northern airspace with Iraq. However, after the United States and the Netherlands deployed Patriot antimissile batteries to protect Israel, and US and British special forces began hunting for Scuds, Shamir responded to American calls for restraint, recalled the jets, and agreed not to retaliate.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir sniffs anethrog during his visit to the Sukkot market in the Geula quarter in Jerusalem, 1988
During his term, Shamir reestablished diplomatic relations between Israel and several dozen African, Asian and other countries. In May 1991, as theEthiopian government ofMengistu Haile Mariam was collapsing, Shamir ordered the airlifting of 14,000Ethiopian Jews, known asOperation Solomon. He continued his efforts, begun in the late 1960s, to bring Soviet Jewish refugees to Israel. Shamir restored diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Israel in October 1991, and following its dissolution, established relations between Israel and his native Belarus in May 1992.[48] Shamir was dedicated to bringing Jews from all over the world to Israel, and called on American Jews to emigrate to Israel in spite of a higher standard of living in the US, saying that he expected even American Jewish youth to realize that "man does not live by bread alone" but to "learn and understand Jewish history, the Bible... and reach the only conclusion: to come on aliya to Israel."[49]
Relations with the US were strained in the period after the war over theMadrid peace talks, which Shamir opposed. As a result, US PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush was reluctant to approve loan guarantees to help absorb immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Finally, Shamir gave in and in October 1991 participated in the Madrid talks. His narrow, right-wing government collapsed, and new elections were necessarily called.
One of Shamir's last acts as Prime Minister was to approve the 16 February 1992 assassination of the leader ofHizbullah, SheikhAbbas al-Musawi.
Electoral defeat and retirement
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir withRuud Lubbers, 1985
Shamir was defeated byYitzhak Rabin'sLabour in the1992 election. He stepped down from the Likud leadership in March 1993 but remained a member of the Knesset until the 1996 election. For some time, Shamir was a critic of his Likud successor,Benjamin Netanyahu, as being too indecisive in dealing with the Arabs. Shamir went so far as to resign from the Likud in 1998 and endorseHerut, a right-wing splinter movement led byBenny Begin, which later joined theNational Union during the 1999 election. After Netanyahu was defeated, Shamir returned to the Likud fold and supportedAriel Sharon in the 2001 election. He was placed honorary 120th last spot on theLikud list in the2003 Israeli legislative election. Subsequently, in his late eighties, Shamir ceased making public comments.
In 2004, Shamir's health declined, with the progression of hisAlzheimer's disease, and he was moved to a nursing home. The government turned down a request by the family to finance his stay at the facility.[50]
Shulamit Shamir died on July 29, 2011.[51] Less than a year later, Yitzhak Shamir died on the morning of June 30, 2012,[52] at a nursing home inTel Aviv where he had spent the last few years[53] as a result of the Alzheimer's disease[54] he had suffered since the mid-1990s.[55] He was given astate funeral, which took place on July 2 atMount Herzl, Jerusalem,[54] and was buried beside his wife, Shulamit,[55] who had died the previous year.[56] As his body waslying in stateSpeaker of the KnessetReuven Rivlin laid awreath on his coffin and said:[57]
You're cast stone, Isaac, unbreakable. Bearing on your shoulders the burden of this nation the past and the future. Remembering in your heart the ashes of the crematoria and the hope of redemption. Nothing could distract you out of your way. Iron tools and weapons of destruction could not touch you, could not threaten you. Flattery, bribery, and double talk—were never on your tongue, were not part of your language. Only one small weakness relentlessly gnawed at you. Only one small weakness managed to break through the solid rock to carve the stones, and build from them the foundations to establish the kingdom of Israel. It was love: Your love of this persecuted people; your love of the homeland of our fathers, of the land of eternity; your love of your children, your home; your love of your Shulamit. ... Sir, commander of Israel's Freedom Fighters, my man, Speaker of the Israeli Knesset, my honored Prime Minister of Israel and an eternal soldier. On my behalf, on behalf of your friends and subordinates; on behalf of the congregation of Israel, on behalf of anonymous soldiers, in the service of the country and in the underground; in the name of the State of Israel, we bow our heads to you. You were dedicated to the people all your life, and now 'from duty be released only by death.' In a few hours we'll say our goodbyes, when you'll be interred in the ground of Jerusalem, the ground of this good land, for which you have lived and fought.
Israeli PresidentShimon Peres said that "Yitzhak Shamir was a brave warrior for Israel, before and after its inception. He was a great patriot and his enormous contribution will be forever etched in our chronicles. He was loyal to his beliefs and he served his country with the utmost dedication for decades. May he rest in peace."[54] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office issued a statement upon hearing of his death that read: "[Shamir] led Israel with a deep loyalty to the nation. [The Prime Minister] expresses his deep pain over the announcement of the departure of Yitzhak Shamir. He was part of a marvelous generation which created the state of Israel and struggled for the Jewish people." This was despite previous feuds between the two once-Likud members.[55] He was also mourned in the Knesset.[58]
Foreign MinisterAvigdor Lieberman added that Shamir "contributed greatly to the foundation of the state, which he served his entire life with loyalty and unwavering dedication. He set an example in each position that he held. I had the privilege to be personally acquainted with Shamir, and I will always remember him and his great contribution to the state;" while Defense MinisterEhud Barak said: "His whole life, Shamir was as stable as granite and maintained focus without compromises. He always strived to ensure Israel's freedom. His devotion knew no bounds [and he] always sought what's right for the people of Israel and for the country's security."
... he was a determined prime minister who dedicated his life to the state. He followed his ideological path honestly and humbly, as a leader should. The citizens of Israel will always remember the wisdom he demonstrated during the First Gulf War. He showed restraint and saved Israel from undue entanglement in the Iraq War. This decision proved to be a brave and wise act of leadership.
His daughter Gilada Diamant said:
[My father] belonged to a different generation of leaders, people with values and beliefs. I hope that we have more people like him in the future. His political doing has undoubtedly left its mark on the State of Israel. Dad was an amazing man, a family man in the fullest sense of the word, a man who dedicated himself to the State of Israel but never forgot his family, not even for a moment. He was a special man.[54]
Awards and recognition
In 2001, Shamir received theIsrael Prize, for his lifetime achievements and special contribution to society and the State of Israel.[59][60][61]
Published works
He wroteSikumo shel davar, a book which was published in English by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, asSumming Up: An autobiography (1994).[62]
Overview of offices held
Shamir twice served as prime minister (Israel'shead of government). His first stint spanned from 10 October 1983 through 13 September 1984, leading the20th government during the latter portion of the10th Knesset. His second stint lasted from 20 October 1986 through 13 July 1992, leading the22nd government during the latter half of the11th Knesset, and23rd and24th governments during the12th Knesset.
Shamir was a member of the Knesset from after his1973 election until 1996. During the first portion of the13th Knesset Shamir served as theKnesset's opposition leader (at the time an unofficial and honorary role) from July 1992 through March 1993.
Shamir became leader ofHerut andLikud in 1983, leading Likud until 1993.
^One author suggests the location for Shamir's story was Derechin, Belarusian S.S.R., but misspelt the name as "Derecyn" and ignored the 1939 border change from Poland (the Polish was "Dereczyn") to the Soviet Union. (See Kati Marton,A death in Jerusalem, Random House, 1994 p.102)
^Olmert, Ehud (July 2012)."Man made of steel". Israel Opinion.Ynetnews.Archived from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved2012-08-09.
^Shomron, David (2008), "We Saw Him As the Head of Lehi",Ahimeir, Itzhak Shamir: As Solid As a Rock (in Hebrew), Yediot Aharonot and the Jabotinsky Institute, p. 103.
^Isidore Abramowitz; Hannah Arendt; Abraham Brick; Rabbi Jeshurun Cardozo; Albert Einstein; Herman Eisen; Hayim Fineman; M. Gallen; H.H. Harris; Zelig S. Harris; Sidney Hook; Fred Karush; Bruria Kaufman; Irma L. Lindheim; Nachman Maisel; Seymour Melman; Myder D. Mendelson; Harry M. Oslinsky; Samuel Pitlick; Fritz Rohrlich; Louis P. Rocker; Ruth Sagis; Itzhak Sankowsky; I.J. Shoenberg; Samuel Shuman; M. Singer; Irma Wolfe; Stefan Wolfe (4 December 1948)."Letters to The Times: New Palestine Party: Visit of Menachem Begin and Aim of Political Movement Discussed"(PDF).The New York Times. Retrieved3 August 2011.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Ben-Yehuda, Nachman (1995),The Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel, University of Wisconsin Press, p. 324.
^Pedahzur, Ami; Perliger, Arie (2011),Jewish Terrorism in Israel, Columbia University Press, p. 28.
^Nowak-Jezioranski 2001, p. 1: 'To conclude from the 1941 pogroms that the Holocaust was the common work of Poles and Germans is a libel. All who feel themselves to be Polish have the responsibility to defend themselves against such slander. The majority of Polish society might be charged with having an attitude of indifference to the extermination of the Jews — if not for the fact that the entire civilized world reacted to the fact of genocide with indifference and passivity. The difference is that Poles were eyewitnesses, defenseless witnesses living in constant fear for their lives and the lives of their families.'
^Joffe, Emmanuel, The Man from Ruzhany, Belarus, Served In The Mossad And Was The Prime Minister of Israel, Vecherny Minsk October 17, 2005 (Monday). № 235 (10911)
Shindler, Colin (1995).Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream: Power, Politics, and the Zionist dream from Begin to Netanyahu. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Shindler, Colin (2002).The Land Beyond Promise: Israel, Likud and the Zionist Dream. London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
West, Benjamin (1959).Jews Under Soviet Rule. Tel Aviv.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
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