Menachem Begin

Biography

Menachem Begin was born in Brest-Litovsk in 1913. A follower of Ze'ev Jabotinsky and a leader in the Revisionist youth movement Betar, he studied law at the University of Warsaw, graduating in 1935. After the German invasion of Poland he fled to Vilnius, was imprisoned by the Soviet authorities, and on his release in 1941 joined the Polish Anders' Army, with which he reached Palestine in May 1942.

There he joined the Irgun and took command of it in 1944. The Irgun proclaimed a revolt against British rule in February 1944, and on Begin's orders it attacked the British headquarters in the King David Hotel in 1946. The clash over the Irgun arms ship Altalena in June 1948 left lasting enmity with David Ben-Gurion. Begin then founded the Herut party and led it in opposition for almost three decades, joining the cabinet only in the national unity government formed in 1967; in 1952 he led violent protests against the reparations agreement with West Germany.

Begin's Likud won the May 1977 election, ending three decades of Labor rule, and he became prime minister. He received Anwar Sadat in Jerusalem, signed the Camp David Accords and the 1979 peace treaty with Egypt, and shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Sadat. His government expanded settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor and invaded Lebanon in 1982. Isolated and grieving the death of his wife, he resigned in October 1983 and lived in seclusion until his death in 1992.