Yitzhak Shamir

Yitzhak Shamir grew up in interwar Poland, joined the Revisionist Zionist Betar, and emigrated to British Palestine in 1935. He joined the Irgun, then split away with Avraham Stern to form Lehi during World War II - a breakaway group that sought Axis support against Britain. After Stern's assassination in 1942, Shamir took command; Lehi and the Irgun committed the Deir Yassin massacre in 1948. He spent a decade in Mossad directing operations, resigned in the mid-1960s, and entered politics with Menachem Begin's Herut in 1969. Elected to the Knesset in 1973, he became Speaker after Likud's 1977 victory, then Foreign Minister through the Lebanon invasion. He succeeded Begin as party leader and prime minister in 1983, lost to Shimon Peres in 1984, traded roles with him twice in a coalition deal, and returned as prime minister in 1986. The First Intifada erupted in 1987; Shamir resisted a two-state solution but was pressed into the Madrid peace talks by Washington and Moscow. He lost to Yitzhak Rabin in 1992 and left the leadership the following year.