The first Israeli to receive the Nobel Peace Prize: Who is Menachem Begin?

Menahem Begin was born on August 16, 1913, in Brest, Belarus. His mother came from a family of rabbis, and his father was the secretary of the Jewish community. At the age of 16, Menachem Begin joined Betar, a radical Zionist youth movement.

He rose to the leadership of this organization while studying law at the University of Warsaw in Warsaw. Menachem Begin, who became the chief of the Polish Betar Organization in 1935, had to flee from oncoming German troops in 1939. His mother, father, and brother became victims of National Socialist terror; Only one sister survived. Menachem Begin escaped from the Nazis occupying Poland in 1939. He went to Vilna, Lithuania during World War II. Menachem Begin was arrested here by the Soviet Union which entered Poland in 1940. He was sentenced to 8 years of forced labor by a court on the charge of being an "agent of imperialism", and was arrested by Soviet authorities and sent to Siberia. When he was released in 1941, he enlisted in the troops under the command of Polish general Wladyslaw Anders.

Menahem Begin immigrated to Palestine in May 1942.

After Menachem Begin came to Palestine, he joined the Irgun Zwai Leumi, which was established as a Jewish underground organization against the British mandate. Begin, who assumed command of a 10,000-man guerrilla unit after 1943, systematically directed the guerrillas to terrorist actions (primarily bomb attacks) against the British. He fought not only against the British authorities and armed Arab groups but also against the Haganah, the underground Jewish army that refused to use terrorist methods. A £2000 bounty has been placed on the head of Menachem Begin, who is wanted on an arrest warrant in absentia as “Terrorist No 1”. After Israel gained independence, Menachem Begin, under pressure from the military, agreed to integrate his organization into the official army.

Menachem Begin (16 August 1913 – 9 March 1992) was an Israeli politician, founder of Likud and the sixth Prime Minister of Israel.

After the Irgun organization was dissolved, he founded the right-wing Herut (Freedom) party in 1948, which aimed to expand Israel's ancient borders, which formed the basis of today's Likud party. He was elected as a member of parliament in the first elections in 1949, and Herut became the 3rd party and won 18 seats. Between 1948 and 1977, the Herut party, headed by Menachem Begin, became the biggest opponent of the ruling Labor Party.

After the Six-Day War, he entered the National Unity Government as an unseated minister in 1967. In 1970, when the majority of the Cabinet in Golda Meir's government complied with the plan of US Secretary of State William Rogers, which envisaged the withdrawal of Israel to safe borders (Roger Plan), he resigned from the government and this position.

For Menachem Begin, the homeland of the Israeli people was the land stretching from the Mediterranean to Jordan. Therefore, he opposed the establishment of a Palestinian state in Palestinian territory; He advocated the creation of Jewish colonies in the west of Jordan. He also opposed the Security Council resolution of November 1967.

Although Menachem Begin was defeated in eight elections before he became prime minister, he won the 1977 elections, ending the 30-year rule of the Labor Party. He formed a national unity government in May 1977. Likud's policy was based on the idea of imposing Israeli sovereignty on all Arab parts of Palestine and not recognizing the Palestinians.

He met with US President Jimmy Carter in Washington in July 1977 and received Anwar Sadat in Jerusalem in November 1977. Thus, he became the first Israeli ruler to receive an Arab head of state.

On March 26, 1979, he signed the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, with the help of Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman. According to this agreement, which was signed with the support of US President Jimmy Carter, Israel left the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt. (Camp David Agreement.) On the other hand, Israel's legality was recognized by an Arab country for the first time.

As a result of the positive impact their contributions to this treaty had in the international arena, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat received the Nobel Peace Prize together in 1978.

Menachem Begin continued the uncompromising and challenging policy he had always followed against the Arabs, even after agreeing with Egypt. It demonstrated this in 1981 by bombing the Tamuz nuclear power plant in Iraq, the Palestinian section of Beirut in Lebanon, and having the parliament approve the annexation of the Syrian Golan region, as well as by invading the south of Lebanon and Beirut in 1982. revealed. Although these attempts led to international reactions, they could not stop him from his path. Despite UN resolutions, international reactions, and fierce opposition from the Arabs, he declared that Jewish settlements would be established in the West Bank and began to implement them.

He won again in the June 1981 elections and continued as prime minister. Menachem Begin, who owed his victory above all to the traditionalist Jews of eastern origin (Sephardic), restarted the period of conflict with the settlement plans he designed for Western Jordan and annexing the occupied Golan Heights of Syria to his country. In 1982, he ordered Israeli Troops to enter Lebanon and ordered the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Troops stationed there to be dispersed.

He hoped to make peace with the assassinated Lebanese prime minister, Bashir Gemayel. However, during an official trip to Washington, he moved away from politics again when he received the news of the death of his wife Aliza Begin in Israel on November 14, 1982. He withdrew from politics in August 1983 and left the office of prime minister to his old friend Yitzhak Shamir.

Private life

Menahem Begin married Aliza Arnold on May 29, 1939. They had a son named Benny Begin in 1943 and two daughters named Leah Begin and Hasia Begin in 1948. His wife died on November 14, 1982.

Menahem Begin died on March 9, 1992, in Tel Aviv, Israel, at the age of 79. In a simple ceremony, he was buried on the Mount of Olives, in accordance with his will, instead of Mount Hertzel, where the dignitaries were buried.