Menahem Volfovitz Begin (in Hebrew: מנחםבגין) (born the August 16th 1913 with Brest-Litovsk - deceased the March 9th 1992 with Jerusalem) was a Israeli Politician . He became the sixth Prime Minister of Israel of May 1977 with August 1983.

Begin, which had always been regarded as a Faucon of the Israeli policy, negotiated the peace agreements of Camp David with Egyptian President Anouar el-Sadate, under the American mediation of President Jimmy Carter. It was then agreed withdrawal of Tsahal of the peninsula of the the Sinai, restored with the Egypt. These agreements, which concretized the diplomatic principle of " exchange; Territories against Paix" , were worth with the two negotiators the Nobel Prize of peace in 1978. The negotiations continued to the signature of the Peace treaty israélo-Egyptian of 1979 which put a final term at the Egyptian military threats at the borders of the State of Israel.

Youth

Born with Brest-Litovsk at one time when the Community life of the Jewish Ashkénaze S was very dynamic there, Begin accepted an education combining the traditional religious study of the Torah and the laic studies. There preserved all its life the application of the religious principles and remained close to the orthodoxe rabbinical Judaism. That was worth the pseudonym of " besides to him; Rabbi Haim Sussover" years later when he fought within the Irgoun against the British capacity in Palestine. The father of Menahem Begin was a leader of his community and a convinced Zionist, admiror of Theodore Herzl. The two parents of Begin perished during the Shoah.

Begin finishes its studies of right to Warsaw in 1935. But the large one turning of the life of Begin was its meeting with Vladimir Zeev Jabotinsky, the founder of the Sionisme revisionist anti-Socialist and the youth movement Betar. Jabotinsky marked much the Begin young person. Begin will integrate Betar as of its creation in 1928 then will take the head in 1939 of it, in spite of some dissensions with Jabotinsky. This last will die in 1940. That marked the beginnings of the political commitment of Begin. In 1939 he flees in Vilnius in Lithuania. following the Soviet invasion of the east of Poland, on September 20th, 1940 it is stopped by the NKVD it is then shown to be an agent of the British imperalism. he is condemned to 8 years of Gulag and envoy to the camp of work of Pechora in Siberia. All these experiments will be told later in the Autobiographie which it will publish. Released thanks to the military agreements polono-Soviet in May 1942, it engaged in the Polish army in construction in the USSR. He deserted in 1943 in company of other Jewish soldiers when their unit stationed in Palestine.

Before 1948

Quickly, he was opposed to the Zionists groups with socialist ideology carried out by David Ben Gourion because he found them too obliging with the British colonial power. He militated for the Zionism revisionist. In 1943, Begin joined the Irgoun and the command in 1947 of it took. Of 1944 to the creation of the State of Israel, Begin will live in clandestinity. It will not have of cease to denounce the measurements taken against Jewish immigration in Palestine and to fight so that the British government withdraws its troops and holds the promise which the Déclaration Balfour constituted.

However, in spite of the reserved treatment with the Jews during the Second world war and the surge of the refugees of the death camps of the Shoah, the British maintained closed the borders of Palestine. Begin was outraged by it and showed the British to apply pro-Arabic measurements. It called with the weapons and Irgoun started a rebellion which aimed at the British installations and positions. It planned in particular the dynamiting of the luxurious hotel King David with Jerusalem which killed 91 people, soldiers and civilians. Begin continued to escape from the British services and the Jewish Agence which pursued it and to order since its hiding-places an army of thousands of combatants, until the British withdrawal in 1948.

In 1948, Begin was on board the boat Altalena which brought weapons to Irgoun, and he survived when David Ben Gourion ordered his torpedoing by the troop carried out by the young person Yitzhak Rabin. The same year, Begin was considered responsible for the tragic episode which had proceeded the April 9th when the commandos of the Irgoun and the Lehi attacked the Arab village of 750 inhabitants of Deir Yassin, located in the corridor between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This attack made more than 100 dead. This episode always is very discussed. The plan Dalet had envisaged to dismantle this village and to evacuate its inhabitants. Begin always repeated that the inhabitants had been warned and were to leave there.

Political commitment after 1948

In the days which followed the Déclaration of Independence of the State of Israel of the May 14th 1948, Begin made a speech diffused by the radio to invite its men to return the weapons. The Israelis then heard his voice for the first time. At the time of parades of its troops, it renewed its request to return the weapons and to join the Haganah in order to constitute the news " Defense forces of Israël" , Tsahal.

Actions of the Irgoun and the clandestine group Lehi (also known under the denomination of " Group Stern ") were denounced by the Israeli left which regarded them as concerning terrorist acts. These two organizations were dissolved in 1948 to avoid any risk of civil war, even if Begin engaged then in a political combat during the thirty following years.

Begin founded its political own party, the Herout (" Liberté") in 1948, with the right-hand side of the Israeli political chessboard, and in margin of the old party declining revisionist which had been founded by Jabotinsky itself. With the elections of 1949, Herout gained 18 seats at the Parliament of the Knesset. The party revisionist without representative with the Parliament was then dissolved and Begin became thus the single leader of the current revisionist.

Of 1948 with 1977, Herout represented the principal alternative to the workers party dominating in Knesset and the tension was large between Menahem Begin and David Ben Gourion. The public was at the time surprised by appearance of Begin and its manners which seemed of another time. For example, Begin, which had been graduate in Right in Poland, continued to prefer the costume and the tie, where socializing preferred abstract behaviors.

Refusing the agreement of compensation for the victims of the Shoah that Ben Gourion negotiated with the German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, Begin was shown to be one of the silent partners of a missed attack made towards the chancellor (in fact, the silent partners thought that the parcel bomb would not reach its target, but a police officer was killed).

The engagement of Begin particularly had echo near the underprivileged citizens and in particular of the new immigrants of origin Séfarade, rather monks as a whole, and who fled the Arab countries. They were full with resentment towards the Israeli elite atheistic Ashkénaze haughty, mainly and politically (very vaguely) near to Soviet Communism.

Begin agrees to take part in the government of national union in 1967 and influences the release of the 6 day old war.

The messages anti-Socialists, anti-élitistes and loans of religious significance that Begin formulated thus attracted this popular base which granted its voices with the elections systematically to him and ends up carrying it to the capacity in May 1977. For that, Begin had agreed in 1973 the plan of the General Ariel Sharon to form a broader Coalition parties of the opposition, while being combined with the Liberal party, the Party of the center and other smaller groups to constitute the Likoud (" consolidation").

Begin managed to realize what appeared unthinkable up to that point: to gain the elections against the workers party, which was a first in the short history of the State of Israel. He became Prime Minister then.

Prime Minister

From 1977 to 1980

Likoud gained the elections of 1977 but was far from the 60 seats out of 120 necessary to support a government on a parliamentary majority. In order to exclude the workers party from the future government, it had to hope on the 15 head offices of the DASH (" Democratic movement for Changement") founded a little earlier by personalities like the General Yigal Yadin, Professor Amnon Rubenstein, Shmuel Tamir and Meir Amit. Yadin will play a big role during the negotiations israélo-Egyptian women. The 5 representatives of the religious party Agoudat Israel also united with this majority of center-droite. Moshe Dayan, former minister “Labor” for the Defense of 1967 to 1973, became Ministre “Likoud” of the Foreign affairs. The principal achievements of the mandate of Menahem Begin were the Camp David agreements and the Peace treaty israélo-Egyptian. He carried out the Israeli withdrawal of the the Sinai, as partially asked by discussed the Résolution 242 (1967) which had formulated the need that Israel withdraws “(/des) territories” after the Guerre the six day old to put an end to the Israeli-Arab Conflit. (See the articles which is devoted there, in particular for a semantic explanation of the terms of the resolution of UNO).

Military bases of the Sinai were reimplanted in the Negev, with financial aids and political guarantees of the the United States. The demolition of Israeli colonies of settlement in the Sinai (in particular the town of Yamit) caused an internal opposition in the Likoud which threatened to divide the party.

1981 and the Iraqi threat

Begin took very with serious the anti-Zionism and the anti-semitism threatening of Saddam Hussein. Israel discussed with the France not to provide to the Iraq its nuclear reactor of Osirak. Then in 1981, Begin ordered the bombardment and the destruction of the nuclear reactor of Tamnuz by Israeli aviation. " At any price, Israel will make it possible an enemy to develop weapons of massive destruction only it could use against our peuple" is known like the “Begin Doctrines”. This operation was denounced by many foreign governments of which the United States by the means of a letter of protest of Ronald Reagan, and the Résolution 487 of UNO condemned it. The Israeli left also condemned the operation, but rather for electoral reasons because the attack had proceeded at 3 weeks of new elections.

1982 and the invasion of Lebanon

In 1982, Begin authorized Tsahal to invade the Lebanon to dislodge of it the PLO which rammed the Galileo starting from the northern border of Israel. The Israeli operation in south-Lebanon lasted 3 years then was to a lesser extent prolonged with an Israeli presence until in 2000.

Last years

Begin was very disappointed by the countryside of Lebanon. It had wished to establish peace with Béchir Gemayel but this one was assassinated. Also, he regretted the many Israeli losses. It was finally very affected by the death of his wife Aliza Begin which has occurred in Israel whereas it was in official trip to Washington. Begin, depressed, was withdrawn from the policy in August 1983 and placed the orders of the government to his/her former comrade of weapons of the group Lehi, Yitzhak Shamir.

Begin seldom left its apartment during its last years, except going on the tomb of his wife to recite there the traditional prayer of the Kaddish. Begin died out with Jerusalem in 1992. It was buried without much ceremony with the Mount of Olives.

In February 2005, 32,8% of the Israelis considered that Begin had been the " larger leader israélien".

Some of its political positions

The principal ideas of Begin went:

• against the partition of Jerusalem which " must remain eternally the capital of the people juif".
• in the direction of an inalienable historical right of the Jewish people on the totality of the " Ground of Israël" (including known as the occupied Palestinian Territories).
• in the direction of an expansion of the values of Freedom in the world.
• in the direction of the right of the Jewish people to defend oneself.
• against the proliferation of the weapons of massive destruction at the enemies of the Jewish people.
• in the direction of the " exchange; Territories against Paix".