Summing Up: An Autobiography

Yitzhak Shamir was possibly the last really strong Prime Minister of Israel,so far. His life was dedicated to love of the Land and People of Israel. He writes of his childhood in the small Polish town of Rujenoy,where Zionism was a part of his upbringing and his raison d' etre since he was young. In 1929 ,fired up by Arab pogroms against Jews in 'Palestine', he joined the Betar Zionist Youth Movement,aged fourteen. Inspired by Zionist leaders such as Vladimir Jabotinsky,of whom he writes with great admiration, he was also influenced in his spirit of resistance against British control over 'Palestine' and nation-building by Irish leader,Michael Collins.Shamir immigrated to the Land of Israel,then under British control, in 1935, where he has lived ever since. He joined the Zionist liberation movement ,the Irgun Zvai Leumi and later the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel,becoming one of it's leaders. Shamir remembers the anti-Jewish pogroms by the Arabs of 1936-1939, euphimistically dubbed by the British as 'the Palestine disturbances'. Although these riots failed to frighten off the Jews, they did frighten the British who did their best to appease the Arabs by consistently reducing the number of Jews allowed to enter the 'Land of Israel'. This became a great source of conflict between the Jews and 'Palestine's' British colonial masters.He discusses the motives for Arab terror , which have not changed in eight decades. The motive was always to prevent Jewish immigration to and settlement in the Land of Israel, and when the British were in charge of 'Palestine',the motive of Arab terror had nothing to do with the Arabs wanting to rule Israel instead of the British -as the Jews did. "The bloodshed was always directed against the Jews, and had no motive except destruction. In 1936,when the the Arabs turned on the British, it was only in relation to the Jews,to Jewish immigration,to doing away with the Jews.It was not to drive the British out of Palestine. Nor,when the British did leave and the State of Israel was created did Palestinian Arabs attempt to assume, or make use of,those areas of the country that were not part of the Jewish State-such as Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip-all inhabited exclusively by Arabs.Arab energy and money were invested instead in endless and fruitless bids to make life here unbearable for us." This has not changed in eight decades. The Palestinian Arabs have no interest in developing their own societies,even in areas under their control, only the destruction of Israel and the mass murder and expulsion of her Jews. The Palestinian Arab offensive is not an anti-colonial one, as leftwing propagandists have brainwashed so many to believe,but rather an anti-Jewish one. Shamir writes of his participation in the underground struggle against the British,of his exile in Eritrea,of the War of Independence and the real facts behind the so-called massacre of Deir Yassin,his years in the Mossad,and his election to the Knesset

Yitzhak Shamir was , in my judgment, one of the finest of Israel's Prime Ministers. He was tough, and strong. Reality helped make him that way. He was an underground leader in the struggle to oust the British and end the Mandate. He was then a Mossad operative . Called to politics he worked his way up and became a two- term Prime Minister of Israel. No doubt one of the formative incidents of his life was the murder of his parents in the Shoah. Shamir was a pragmatic leader for whom Security was the first consideration. He did not trust and believe in Arab good intention. And he was dedicated to attaining and preserving all the land of Israel for the Jewish people. Towards the end of his term under American pressure he went to the Madrid conference, a conference which was a predecessor of the misfortunate Oslo

This is the fascinating story of a person who did something truly atypical, going from the life of an outsider who led a violent gang to a life of genuine public service. Shamir tells of his childhood in Poland and his education in Hebrew there. He then tells of his political hero, Vladimir Jabotinsky, who advocated free enterprise, possessed a "deeply rooted liberalism" and strongly objected to "acts of an extra-legal nature." While Jabotinsky in fact approved of "illegal" immigration into what is now Israel, that was only if all other channels were closed. And Jabotinsky was equally opposed to "evacuating" Arabs and to creating a binational state with them. By 1935, the 20-year old Shamir was already in the Levant. Why? Because Josef Goebbels had planned a visit to Warsaw. That was the last straw for Shamir. On hearing the news of this, he left Poland at once. As Shamir explains, the 1939 White Paper that basically shut down Jewish immigration to the Levant earned the British his "profound hostility." While he explains that he has never hated people, he then realized that the Jews of the area had to be rid of the British, and that an alliance with the British would not work. Shamir then joined the Stern Gang. In perhaps the best line in the book, Shamir says that he has always believed that "war is a conflict between the forces of evil." You read this and you wait for the second half of the sentence...maybe he'll say that it is between the forces of evil and those of good, or something. But there is no second half to the sentence. The author then tells of the war against the British, "a war fought not for territory or glory but for immigration certificates for Jews." The book then explains how Shamir went from being a leader of an outlawed group to a responsible citizen. The biggest step came in 1955, when he joined the Mossad. This gave him a chance to use the leadership skills he had developed in the Stern Gang to work for a responsible government. After that, he slowly managed to get into normal politics. Shamir makes a few points that are worth remembering. First, the dismantling of Yamit was a very bad precedent, not just for Jews or Israel, but in general. Second, the American media generally show unfairness towards Israel. Third, the nature of the dispute with the Arabs is not territorial: Israel's 28,000 square kilometers not being excessive compared with the 14,000,000 square kilometers belonging to the Arabs, whose population is not even 50 times that of the Jews, let alone 500 times. The author explains his opposition to the disastrous Oslo agreement. And he concludes that he can only hope that the people of Israel, whose judgment and endurance he trusts, "will look for, and find, alternative paths - even if they are rockier and steeper - to lead them to a viable peace that has not been bought with their security, their land, or their rights." I agree with these sentiments, and I recommend th

Mr. Shamir, former member of the Stern Gang should be lionized as one of the great leaders of the Israeli right. Yet he has been forgotten. He has been relegated to the trash bin so that leaders like Mr. Netanyahoo and Mr. Begin can have the limelight(should I include Sharon). This is his story, told in his words. Few books on Israel detail the reign of Shamir and even fewer seem to judge him in a fair light. A founder of the Israeli republic, he should not be forgotten. This book talks about his ideas and his many struggles. But alas, the book also has weakness in that it does not describe all th events that took place under his premiership. He descibes more the scandals then the positions he stood for. Mostly this is due to the fact that this book was written soon after his retirement and he felt the reader would be familiar with his struggles, but 20 years later we are not familiar.