Menachem Begin

Menachem Begin was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud, and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel. Before the creation of the state of Israel, he was the leader of the Zionist militant group Irgun, the Revisionist breakaway from the larger Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah. On 1 February 1944, he proclaimed a revolt against the British mandatory government, which the Jewish Agency initially opposed. Later, the Irgun fought the Arabs during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine.

Begin was elected to the first Knesset as head of Herut, the party he founded, and was at first on the political fringe, embodying the opposition to the Mapai-led government and Israeli establishment. He remained in opposition in eight consecutive elections (except for a national unity government around the Six-Day War) but became more acceptable to the political center. His 1977 electoral victory and premiership ended three decades of Labor Party political dominance.

Begin's most significant achievement as Prime Minister was signing a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, for which he and Anwar Sadat shared the Nobel Prize for Peace. In the wake of the Camp David Accords, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, which had been captured from Egypt in the Six-Day War. Later, Begin's government promoted the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Begin authorized the bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq and the invasion of Lebanon in 1982 to fight PLO strongholds there, igniting the 1982 Lebanon War.

As Israeli military involvement in Lebanon deepened, and the Sabra and Shatila massacre, carried out by Christian Phalangist militia allies of the Israelis, shocked world public opinion, Begin grew increasingly isolated. As IDF forces remained mired in Lebanon and the economy suffered from hyperinflation, the public pressure on Begin mounted. Depressed by the death of his wife Aliza in November 1982, he gradually withdrew from public life until his resignation in October 1983.

Menachem Begin was born to Zeev Dov and Hassia Begun in what was then Brest-Litovsk in the Russian Empire (today Brest, Belarus). He was the youngest of three children. On his mother's side, he was descended from distinguished rabbis. His father, a timber merchant, was a community leader, a passionate Zionist, and an admirer of Theodor Herzl. The midwife who attended his birth was the grandmother of Ariel Sharon.

After a year of a traditional cheder education, Begin started studying at a "Tachkemoni" school associated with the religious Zionist movement. In his childhood, Begin, like most Jewish children in his town, was a member of the Zionist scout's movement Hashomer Hatzair. He was a member of Hashomer Hatzair until age 13, and at 16, he joined Betar. At 14, he was sent to a Polish government school, where he received a solid grounding in classical literature.