Israeli roadblock to peace: Likud ideologue Yitzhak Shamir

Yasser Arafat is dead. You would think the road to peace is now possible. But there are remaining roadblocks that won't disappear until the ideoloque generation in Israel also dies.

The Israeli roadblock to peace: The extreme right wing Likud ideologue Yitzhak Shamir probably did more damage to the Isreal's peace process than anyone else (followed by Sharon until his recent peace moves.) Shamir was the prime mover in the disasterous Israeli West Bank development.

Yitzhak Shamir
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Yitzhak Shamir (born October 15, 1915) was Prime Minister of Israel from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992.

Born in Ruzinoy, Poland, he came to Palestine in 1935. His family name was Jazernicki but he later changed it to Shamir. Shamir joined the Irgun Zvai Leumi, one of the underground Jewish militant organizations directed against the British occupation of Palestine. When the Irgun split in 1940, Shamir sided with the most militant faction, headed by Avraham Stern, which later became known as the Stern Gang. In 1941 he was imprisoned by British authorities. After Stern was killed by the British in 1942, Shamir escaped from the detention camp and became one of the three leaders of the group in 1943, reforming it as "Lehi". During his tenure, the Lehi was responsible for many deeds, including the 1944 assassination of Britain's minister of state for the Middle East, Lord Moyne, and the 1948 assassination of the United Nations representative in the Middle East, Count Folke Bernadotte.

After the successful battle for independence, Shamir joined the secret intelligence service (Mossad) (1955-1965) and was first elected to the Knesset in 1973. He became chairman of the Knesset in 1977, and foreign minister in 1980, before succeeding Menachem Begin as prime minister in 1983.

Although Shamir had a reputation as a Likud hard-liner, in 1977 he presided at the visit of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and the peace talks; in 1981 and 1982 he guided negotiations with Egypt to normalize relations after the treaty and directed negotiations which led to the 1983 agreement with Lebanon (never ratified by the Lebanese government).

His failure to stabilize Israel's inflationary economy led to an indecisive election in 1984, after which a coalition was formed between his Likud Party and the Labor Party, led by Shimon Peres. Peres agreed to be prime minister until September 1986, when Shamir took over.

As he prepared to reclaim the office of prime minister, which he had held previously from October 1983 to September 1984, Shamir's hard-line image appeared to moderate. Reelected in 1988, Shamir and Peres formed a new coalition government until 1990, when the Labor party left the government, leaving Shamir with a narrow coalition.

In 1991 the Shamir government took part in the Madrid peace talks and ordered the rescue of thousands of Ethiopian Jews, the Operation Solomon. The Shamir government also did not attack Iraq for firing volleys of Scud missiles at Israel. The United States urged restraint, saying Israeli attacks would pose problems for the delicate Arab-Western coalition assembled against Iraq. Although long a hard-liner, Shamir left office in 1992, after his government fell amid charges that Likud was too conciliatory toward the Palestinians, and was succeeded by Yitzhak Rabin.

Shamir stepped down from Likud leadership in March, 1993. He was a sharp critic of his Likud successor, Benjamin Netanyahu, as being too indecisive in dealing with the Palestinians.

Yitzhak Shamir

(1915- ) Israeli politician and prime minister (1983- 84, 1986- 92).
Shamir is the most conservative prime minister Israel has seen, and challenges even Ariel Sharon. He opposed the peace initiatives of both the Camp David Accords, even if his own party supported this. He pretended to be willing to negotiate for peace with the Arab states in the early 1990's, but he admitted later on that all he wanted was to drag the talks out for years.

But at the same time, he is the man who was in charge of the successful normalization process with Egypt in the early 1980's, and he was able to resume diplomatic ties with many African countries.

Shamir has a background as a terrorist in the 1940's, a Mossad agent in the 1950's and 60's. As a prime minister he has been active in promoting the construction and enlargement of the Jewish-only settlements in occupied territory (Palestine and Syria), declared illegal by the United Nations. 1991: Participates at the Middle East Peace Conference in Madrid, but it didn't lead to any results, as Shamir (as he later told) just tried to drag out the talks. What really destroyed the climate of these talks, was Shamir's insistence of continuing to build Jewish-only settlements on Palestinian territory.

1992: Likud loses the general elections, and Shamir resigns as prime minister.
1993: Shamir steps down as leader of Likud, and is succeeded by Benjamin Netanyahu.