Menachem Begin

Menachem Begin (1913-1992), Israeli prime minister (1977-1983), who signed the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country.

Begin was born on August 16, 1913, in Brest Litovsk, Russia (now Brest, Belarus), and trained in law at the University of Warsaw. Active in the Zionist movement, he became head of Betar, a Jewish youth organization, in 1939. When the Germans invaded Poland, Begin fled to Lithuania, but was arrested and held in a Soviet concentration camp (1940-1941) until he joined a Polish army formed in the USSR to fight the Nazis. By 1942 he was in Palestine, where he soon became commander of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, a guerrilla group seeking to oust the British from Palestine. After the British withdrew and the state of Israel was founded in 1948, Begin transformed the Irgun into the Herut (Freedom) party. He was elected to Israel's legislature, the Knesset, in 1949 and became a forceful conservative opposition leader; he served as minister without portfolio from 1967 to 1970.

In 1973 the opposition parties formed the Likud (Unity) bloc, of which Begin was a co-leader, and when the bloc won the 1977 elections, he became prime minister. In 1978 he and the Egyptian president, Anwar al-Sadat, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their leadership in negotiations that—with some US help—resulted in the signing of a peace treaty the following year. In 1981 Begin won a new term in office, and in 1982 he authorized an Israeli invasion of southern Lebanon. In failing health, despondent over his wife's death in late 1982, and beset by controversy stemming from the continued Israeli occupation of Lebanon, Begin stepped down in September 1983. He spent the rest of his life in virtual seclusion, appearing in public only rarely.