A man holds a portrait of former Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir as his body lies in state at the Knesset (Israel's parliament) in Jerusalem on 2 July 2012. (Photo: AFP - Gali Tibbon)
Ex-Israeli prime minister, Yitzak Shamir, died at the age of 96 on Saturday. He believed in the idea of “Eretz Israel,” and was one of the longest lasting of the Zionist state’s “founding generation.”
A close friend of Yitzak Shamir revealed that when the Soviet Union collapsed, Shamir told him that the fall of the Communist empire was the result of its leaders abandoning their ideology. This belief in ideology was Shamir’s key trait, governing all his political, and before that military, actions. It is what characterised his career as Israel’s seventh prime minister. It also determined the features of the end of this career when his participation in the Madrid conference in 1991 caused the Right-wing allies in his government to abandon him and his government to fall.
As a leader steeped in Zionist ideology, of the original kind, which adheres to the idea of “the Land of Israel” falling on both sides of the river Jordan, Shamir believed that the best way to safeguard Israel’s interest was by stalling, which he achieved by dragging his feet and aborting any political initiatives based on the principles of mutual compromise.
He abided by these principles, even to the point of abstaining from voting on the Camp David Agreement even though he was the Speaker of the Knesset at the time. He was also determined to void the negotiations at the Madrid conference of all their content. This was revealed later when he said that he was determined to carry on the negotiations for decades.
Shamir did not even care to appear as if he was seeking to achieve peace with the Palestinians, to the extent that those close to him have said that for him the Oslo Agreements were a source of sadness and tragedy. He became famous for a quote reflecting his pessimistic outlook on the chances of achieving real peace: “The sea is the same sea, and the Arabs are the same Arabs.” It demonstrated his lack of faith in the possibility of any change in Israel’s position on the Arabs.
The ideological personality of Icchak Jaziemicki, born in Poland in 1915, was formed in his youth, when he joined the Zionist paramilitary organization, Betar, formed by the spiritual leader of the Zionist Right, Ze’ev Jabotinsky. When he immigrated to Palestine in 1935, changing his family name to Shamir, he put his political ideology into practice and joined the military organization, Etzel, which at the time fought the British and the Palestinians to expel them from “Eretz Israel.” However, Etzel was not extremist enough for Shamir, so in early 1940, he left the organization and formed Lehi with Avraham Stern.
When Stern was killed by the British, Shamir became the leader of the organization. From his position, he oversaw the attempted assassination of the British High Commissioner in Palestine, Lord MacMichael, the assassination of the British Minister of State in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, and the assassination of the UN envoy to Palestine, Baron Folke Bernadotte, in Jerusalem.
During the Mandate period, Shamir was arrested twice by the British, but he managed to escape from his exile at an Eritrean prison. From there, he headed to Djibouti and then to Paris, arriving in Palestine after the declaration of the state of Israel.
After the state was declared, Shamir remained in the shadows, where from 1955, he occupied several posts in Mossad. In 1965, he moved on to political work with the Herut party led by Menachem Begin. In 1974, he was elected a member of the Knesset for the party. He became Speaker of the Knesset after the elections of 1977. In 1980, he became foreign minister in Begin’s first government, then he took over as prime minister and leader of the Likud government in 1983 when Begin resigned having fallen into the quagmire of the war in Lebanon.
In 1984, a national unity government was formed headed by Shimon Peres for Labour and Yitzak Shamir for Likud, under an alternation agreement to last until 1988. Between, 1988-1992, Shamir headed a Right-wing government. During this period, Shamir convinced the US Administration to close their borders to Jews immigrating from the Soviet Union, forcing them to go to Israel. This led to about one million Jews moving to occupied Palestine in the space of a few years at the beginning of the 1990s.
When Likud lost the elections in 1992, Shamir moved to the back benches. He announced his retirement from politics in 1999, in protest against the political “compromises” offered by Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud party at the time.
Despite his track record, and despite him being the second longest serving prime minister, after David Ben-Gurion, Shamir’s departure from the political arena did not cause any ripples. In fact, he was quickly forgotten, himself suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He spent the last years of his life in an old people’s home.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
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| Madrid conference in 1991 |
As a leader steeped in Zionist ideology, of the original kind, which adheres to the idea of “the Land of Israel” falling on both sides of the river Jordan, Shamir believed that the best way to safeguard Israel’s interest was by stalling, which he achieved by dragging his feet and aborting any political initiatives based on the principles of mutual compromise.
He abided by these principles, even to the point of abstaining from voting on the Camp David Agreement even though he was the Speaker of the Knesset at the time. He was also determined to void the negotiations at the Madrid conference of all their content. This was revealed later when he said that he was determined to carry on the negotiations for decades.
Shamir did not even care to appear as if he was seeking to achieve peace with the Palestinians, to the extent that those close to him have said that for him the Oslo Agreements were a source of sadness and tragedy. He became famous for a quote reflecting his pessimistic outlook on the chances of achieving real peace: “The sea is the same sea, and the Arabs are the same Arabs.” It demonstrated his lack of faith in the possibility of any change in Israel’s position on the Arabs.
The ideological personality of Icchak Jaziemicki, born in Poland in 1915, was formed in his youth, when he joined the Zionist paramilitary organization, Betar, formed by the spiritual leader of the Zionist Right, Ze’ev Jabotinsky. When he immigrated to Palestine in 1935, changing his family name to Shamir, he put his political ideology into practice and joined the military organization, Etzel, which at the time fought the British and the Palestinians to expel them from “Eretz Israel.” However, Etzel was not extremist enough for Shamir, so in early 1940, he left the organization and formed Lehi with Avraham Stern.
When Stern was killed by the British, Shamir became the leader of the organization. From his position, he oversaw the attempted assassination of the British High Commissioner in Palestine, Lord MacMichael, the assassination of the British Minister of State in the Middle East, Lord Moyne, and the assassination of the UN envoy to Palestine, Baron Folke Bernadotte, in Jerusalem.
During the Mandate period, Shamir was arrested twice by the British, but he managed to escape from his exile at an Eritrean prison. From there, he headed to Djibouti and then to Paris, arriving in Palestine after the declaration of the state of Israel.
After the state was declared, Shamir remained in the shadows, where from 1955, he occupied several posts in Mossad. In 1965, he moved on to political work with the Herut party led by Menachem Begin. In 1974, he was elected a member of the Knesset for the party. He became Speaker of the Knesset after the elections of 1977. In 1980, he became foreign minister in Begin’s first government, then he took over as prime minister and leader of the Likud government in 1983 when Begin resigned having fallen into the quagmire of the war in Lebanon.
In 1984, a national unity government was formed headed by Shimon Peres for Labour and Yitzak Shamir for Likud, under an alternation agreement to last until 1988. Between, 1988-1992, Shamir headed a Right-wing government. During this period, Shamir convinced the US Administration to close their borders to Jews immigrating from the Soviet Union, forcing them to go to Israel. This led to about one million Jews moving to occupied Palestine in the space of a few years at the beginning of the 1990s.
When Likud lost the elections in 1992, Shamir moved to the back benches. He announced his retirement from politics in 1999, in protest against the political “compromises” offered by Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud party at the time.
Despite his track record, and despite him being the second longest serving prime minister, after David Ben-Gurion, Shamir’s departure from the political arena did not cause any ripples. In fact, he was quickly forgotten, himself suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He spent the last years of his life in an old people’s home.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
Uprooted Palestinian 
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