The Shamir legacy
FOR all that he did during his stint as Israel’s second longest-serving prime minister in the 1980s and 1990s, the most important moment of Yitzhak Shamir’s life was arguably the one when he chose not to act.
Israelis look back on the Gulf War of 1990 and 1991 as the disaster that never unfolded. Scuds landed in Tel Aviv, but casualties were extremely light. And uncharacteristically, given his hardline credentials, Shamir, who died on Saturday aged 96, refrained from retaliating. Others in his government were keen to do so, but he resisted.
It is widely thought that this decision saved the Israeli home front from bearing the brunt of a major escalation, and kept Israelis safe during the war. Today, Israelis talk of the Gulf War as a conflict that they spent sitting in rooms “sealed” with sticky tape, which they fear offered no protection, and wearing gas masks that they hardly trusted. It was thanks to Shamir that they never had to find out how safe, or unsafe, they were.
Shamir was a reserved man who was often said to lack a strong personality, and, as a result, whose legacy is rarely discussed. It is the ultimate irony of Israeli politics that Yitzhak Rabin is universally remembered for the peace process, even though Israel does not yet have peace, while Yitzhak Shamir, who achieved most of what was important to him, is often forgotten.
He was an avowed Zionist who strongly believed in aliyah and began the mass immigration of both Ethiopian Jews and Soviet Jews – today major sectors in Israeli society. He made aliyah himself from a Polish town under Russian control aged 20, and decades later, when he was prime minister, the same ideology that got him to do so made him want others to follow in his footsteps. It is easy to forget the amazement felt when Jews who had been behind the Iron Curtain for so long began arriving, and to forget that it was Shamir’s doing.
A former militant in the right-wing pre-state underground, he stayed loyal to its ideology and was a believer in Israel retaining control of the West Bank and Gaza. He frustrated attempts to start serious negotiations for territorial compromise with the Palestinians and derailed a plan by then-foreign minister Shimon Peres to give Jordan sovereignty over the West Bank (the so-called “Jordanian Option”). When he left office in 1992, he had withstood international pressure and Israel’s control over the West Bank and Gaza was as strong as when he entered – even stronger if one considers his promotion of settlements and the fact that the number of settlers had grown by 30 per cent.
As far as the right is concerned, he prevented the West Bank and Gaza then from becoming what Gaza is now – a hotbed of radicalism from which violence can be unleashed against Israel. As far as the left is concerned, he missed a golden opportunity that could have saved Israel from its current impasse in the search for peace. But both camps agree that he succeeded according to his own criteria. And both camps agree that he was absolutely committed to his country, dedicating himself completely to what he believed were its best interests and acting with integrity and humility.
Writing in the left-leaning Haaretz, the newspaper’s former editor, David Landau, who covered Shamir during his premiership, wrote that the former prime minister did “enormous damage” as far as he is concerned, but “on another plane, Yitzhak Shamir was a man whom Israelis can feel proud of having had as their prime minister. An upright man, a man untouched by corruption.”
Even Shamir’s political foe Shimon Peres – the two men disliked each other intensely, especially after Peres negotiated for the “Jordanian Option” and Shamir pulled the plug on it – had kind words. Shamir had “solid opinions” and “his ideology stemmed from the history of our people,” Peres said at the funeral.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, essentially Shamir’s choice to take over the Likud when he stepped down after losing the 1992 election, has spoken at length since his death about his contribution to Israel. “He dedicated his life to the Zionist idea, to the Jewish people and the Land of Israel,” Netanyahu said at the Cabinet meeting on Sunday. “He will always be remembered as one who was decisive, sharp, precise, brave and modest.”
Though Netanyahu has gone against Shamir’s path by agreeing in principle to an independent Palestinian entity in the West Bank, he emphasised an element of his governance in which he sees himself as loyal to Shamir. “What defined Shamir more than anything else was his unconditional loyalty to Israel and its security,” Netanyahu said at a special meeting of Likud. “Yitzhak was consistent and restrained and he knew how to choose realistic stances that fit each and every situation.”
NATHAN JEFFAY
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