New York Times hypocrisy and left wing bias.

New York Times v. Adelson
They have different agendas. But surely they have an equal right to promote their agendas.

By Clifford D. May

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Clifford D. May

The New York Times’ editorial writers — who reflect the opinions of the newspaper’s publisher and principal owner, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., who hires and fires them — have their knickers in a knot over Sheldon Adelson. What has the Las Vegas hotel-and-casino tycoon done? The Times asserts that he is spending his money “to advance his personal, ideological and financial agenda, which is wildly at odds with the nation’s needs.”

Readers of the Times are expected to take it on faith that Mr. Sulzberger, who came by his status through inheritance, accurately perceives the nation’s needs, and that Mr. Adelson, who over the course of his 77 years rose from dire poverty to fabulous wealth by building businesses, has not a clue.
Full disclosure No. 1: I spent some of the best years of my life working for the Times, as a reporter, foreign correspondent, and editor. Then, as now, some of the world’s finest journalists were employed by the Grey Lady. One thing they have had in common: They do not draw conclusions and level charges except on the basis of solid evidence. By contrast, the Times’ editorial writers no longer burden themselves with serious argumentation. They assert, they preach, they allege. I have heard Times reporters grumble about this — though not on the record.

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Full disclosure No. 2: I know Mr. Adelson and, on occasion, he’s donated funds to the non-partisan, non-profit organization I head to support work on national-security issues he views as critically important. But not for that reason do I defend his constitutional right to spend as much of his money as he likes to persuade his fellow Americans that his agenda is preferable to that favored by the Times. I would just as vehemently defend the free-speech rights of George Soros, another multibillionaire who spends lavishly to promote his agenda — an agenda with which the Times largely agrees and I do not. The Times has never criticized Mr. Soros as they have Mr. Adelson. In other words: I am championing a principle without exception; the Times — not so much.
The Times promotes its policy preferences — again, we’re really talking about Mr. Sulzberger’s policy preferences — every day, using ink it buys by the barrel. The Times sees that as part of its mission, correctly. But private citizens are entitled to the same free-speech rights as the media — unless, of course, one embraces as a serious principle what I’ve always assumed the great journalist A. J. Liebling intended as a quip: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” It should not go unobserved that the Times rarely allows opposing views to be aired on its op-ed pages.
Much of the money that Mr. Adelson, Mr. Soros, and others give to political candidates is spent on communications — ads in newspapers (including the Times) and on television and radio. The ads run by the politicians Mr. Adelson is likely to support often rebut the opinions articulated by the Times and other mainstream media, as well as the “public media,” which are subsidized with taxpayer dollars.
Mr. Adelson recently spent more than $20 million to support the presidential candidacy of Newt Gingrich. The Times calls that an attempt to “buy influence” but, more objectively, it was an attempt to persuade voters and, in my view, a net contribution to the national policy debate. Now Mr. Adelson is supporting Mitt Romney. That support, the Times fears, could help push the Republican candidate “over the top in a close race like this year’s.” The Times sees that as unfair. What the Times views as fairer: The Times supporting President Obama and pushing him over the top in a close race like this year’s.
The Times mentions only one substantive issue motivating Mr. Adelson: He is writing “huge checks” because, the Times alleges, of his “disgust for a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, supported by President Obama and most Israelis.” What is the basis for the Times’ use of a loaded word such as “disgust”? Readers are not told. The Times adds only that Mr. Adelson “considers a Palestinian state a stepping stone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people.”
Why in the world might Mr. Adelson think that? Well, there is the fact that Hamas, which rules Gaza, has repeatedly proclaimed that there can be “no solution” to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict “except through jihad,” a religious war through which “Islam will obliterate [Israel] just as it obliterated others before it.”
There is the fact that Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah, has banned “all informal meetings between Israelis and Palestinians” because such dialogue promotes “the culture of peace” and is designed to “normalize” relations between Israelis and Palestinians. There is the fact that Palestinian Authority official Adli Sadeq has written in the official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, that Israelis “fool themselves, assuming that Fatah accepts them and recognizes the right of their state to exist, and that it is Hamas alone that loathes them and does not recognize the right of this state to exist. They ignore the fact that this state, based on a fabricated [Zionist] enterprise, never had any shred of a right to exist.”
If Times editorial writers have contradictory evidence, reasons to believe that Hamas and Fatah do not see a Palestinian state as “a stepping stone for the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people,” it would be useful for them to present it.
The Times goes on to charge that Mr. Adelson’s “overriding interest is his own wallet. He rails against the president’s ‘socialist-style economy’ and redistribution of wealth, but what he really fears is Mr. Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on companies like his that make a huge amount of money overseas.” Think about this for a minute: A man well into his eighth decade worth billions of dollars “fears” a tax increase?
The Times neglects to inform readers that Mr. Adelson does not give away money only to participate in political debates. He also has donated huge amounts for medical research, education, and other philanthropic pursuits. If his “overriding interest” were his wallet, would he do that?
The Times concludes by lamenting that we live in a time when “there are no legal or moral limits” preventing Mr. Adelson from helping “to elect Republicans who promise to keep his billions intact.” Under the moral and legal regime the Times would prefer, newspaper owners, “progressive” politicians, and government bureaucrats would decide how to spend Mr. Adelson’s money — and he would shut the hell up. I leave it for you to ponder whether that agenda would be in line with “the nation’s needs.”
— Clifford D. May is president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism and Islamism.

israel next energy powerhouse

012

Israel’s Emergence As Energy Superpower Making Waves

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD

Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir famously lamented that Moses led the children of Israel for forty years of wandering in the desert until he found the only place in the Middle East where there wasn’t any oil.

But could Moses have been smarter than believed? Apparently the Canadians and the Russians think so, as both countries are moving to step up energy relations with a tiny nation whose total energy reserves some experts now think could rival or even surpass the fabled oil wealth of Saudi Arabia.

Actual production is still miniscule, but evidence is accumulating that the Promised Land, from a natural resource point of view, could be an El Dorado: inch for inch the most valuable and energy rich country anywhere in the world. If this turns out to be true, a lot of things are going to change, and some of those changes are already underway.

Israel and Canada have just signed an agreement to cooperate on the exploration and development of what, apparently, could be vast shale oil reserves beneath the Jewish state.

The prospect of huge oil reserves in Israel comes on top of the recent news about large natural gas discoveries off the coast that have been increasingly attracting attention and investor interest. The apparent gas riches have also been attracting international trouble. Lebanon disputes the undersea boundary with Israel (an act somewhat complicated by the fact that Lebanon has never actually recognized Israel’s existence), and overlapping claims from Turkey and Greece themselves plus both Greek and Turkish authorities on Cyprus further complicate matters. Yet despite these tensions, following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s surprisingly cordial visit last week, Gazprom and Israel have announced plans to cooperate on gas extraction.

This suggests at a minimum that Turkish efforts to block gas development in the region will face opposition from Russia as well as from Israel. Gazprom and other Russian companies are also likely to do well in any gas exploration deals developed with the strongly pro-Moscow (and very cash hungry) Greek Cypriot government.

The stakes are not small: the offshore Levantine Basin (which Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Israel and even Gaza will all have some claim to) is believed to have 120 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and “considerable” oil.  Drillers working in Israeli waters have already identified what look to be 5 billion barrels of recoverable oil in addition to over a trillion cubic feet of gas. (US firms were involved in these finds.) Israel’s undersea gas reserves are currently estimated at about 16 trillion cubic feet and new fields continue to be rapidly found.

The new Israeli-Russian agreement is part of a conscious strategy by the Israeli government to use its nascent energy wealth to improve its embattled political position. With Italy reeling under the impact of big wrong-way bets on Iran, Rome may also begin to appreciate the value of good ties with a closer and more dependable neighbor. Another sensible target for Israeli energy diplomacy would be India: the two countries are already close in a number of ways, including trade and military technology, and India is eager to diversify its energy sources.

Gas is one thing, but potential for huge shale oil reserves under Israel itself, however, is a new twist. According to the World Energy Council, a leading global energy forum with organizations and affiliates in some 93 countries, Israel may have the third largest shale oil reserves in the world: something like 250 billion barrels. (The US and China are both believed to have larger shale oil reserves, with the US believed to have the equivalent of well over 1 trillion barrels of potentially recoverable shale and China having perhaps one third of that amount. Canada’s Athabaskan oil sands reserves may contain the equivalent of 2 trillion of barrels conventional oil, or more than all the conventional oil known to exist in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran combined.) If the estimates of Israeli shale oil are correct, Israel’s gas and shale reserves put its total energy reserves in the Saudi class, though Israel’s energy costs more to extract.

Many obstacles exist and in a best case scenario some time must pass before the full consequences of the world’s new energy geography make themselves felt, but if production from the new sources in Israel and elsewhere develops, world politics will change. The countries along both coasts of the Persian Gulf erupted into global prominence in the 1970s when world energy shortages catapulted them into previously undreamt of wealth and political influence.  Those countries will still be rich; for the most part, their energy is cheaper to produce than the more unconventional sources in the rest of the world, including Israel.

But what they keep in money they may lose in clout. OPEC’s power to dictate world prices is likely to decline as Canadian, US, Israeli and Chinese resources come on line. In fact, the Gulf’s most powerful oil weapon going forward may be the ability of those countries to under-price rivals; expensive shale oil isn’t going to be very profitable if OPEC steps up production of its cheap stuff. (Brutal, dog-eat-dog price wars driving oil prices down to derisory levels: Via Meadia trembles at the thought.)

Nonetheless, the ability of the Arab governments to influence political opinion in Europe and the rest of the world is likely to decline as more oil and gas resources appear — and as Israel emerges as an important supplier. We could be heading toward a time when the world just doesn’t care all that much what happens around the Persian Gulf — as long as nobody gets frisky with the nukes.

Another big loser could be Turkey. For years the Kemalist, secular rulers of Turkey worked closely with Israel, and the relationship benefited both sides. Under the Islamist AK party, that relationship gradually deteriorated. Both sides were at fault: Turkish politicians were all too ready to demagogue the issue to score domestic political points, and Israelis did not respond with all possible tact.

But if Israel really does emerge as a great energy power, and a Russia-Greece-Cyprus-Israel energy consortium does in fact emerge, Turkey will feel like someone who jilted a faithful longtime girlfriend the week before she won a huge lottery jackpot. More, Turkey’s ambitions to play a larger role in the old Ottoman stomping ground of the eastern Mediterranean basin will have suffered a significant check.

If the possibility of huge Israeli energy discoveries really pans out, and if the technical and resource problems connected with them can actually be solved, the US-Israeli relationship will also change. Some of this may already be happening. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s evident lack of worry when it comes to crossing President Obama may reflect his belief that Israel has some new cards to play. An energy-rich Israel with a lot of friends and suitors is going to be less dependent on the US than it has been — and it is also going to be a more valuable ally.

The emerging new energy picture in Israel has the potential to be one of the biggest news developments of the next ten years. Potentially, the energy revolution and the change in Israel’s outlook has more geopolitical implications than the Arab Spring. Via Meadia will be following this story and trying to make sense of the geopolitical and economic shifts as they occur.

Even at this very early stage, the impact of Israel’s energy wealth is dramatic. On President Putin’s visit to Jerusalem, he donned a kippah and went to pray at the Western Wall of the ancient Temple. As one press report has it, at the close of his visit, Putin turned to one of the Russian Jews present and said

I came here to pray that the Temple should be rebuilt, and I wish that your prayers will be fulfilled.

Putin had more honeyed words for his Israeli hosts. Touring the Wall, he said “Here, we see how the Jewish past is etched into the stones of Jerusalem.” This is not quite a formal recognition of Israeli claims to the Old City, but it is much more than Israelis usually hear. (Many Arabs and Palestinians insist that there is no connection between the Jews and the Western Wall, known in Arabic as the Al Buraq Wall after the mysterious heavenly steed said to have brought the Prophet Mohammed to Jerusalem on his famous Night Journey.)

The reaction from the Arab side to Putin’s statement about the historically Jewish character of Jerusalem was correspondingly furious. The Al Aqsa Institute issued the following statement:

We tell Putin and people like him that the Al-Buraq Wall is exclusive Muslim Waqf property, is an inseparable part of the blessed Al Aqsa Mosque and non-Muslims have no rights at this wall or at the blessed Al Aqsa Mosque, and all historic facts and international documents stress the fact that the Al Buraq Wall is Islamic…

We stress that every stone in the Al Aqsa Mosque and its buildings shows is evidence that it is Islamic and every stone in Al Quds is testimony to Al Quds’s Muslim and Arabic nature.

If the oil and the gas start to flow in anything like the quantities experts think now may be possible, expect many more visitors to Jerusalem to say similar things to Israelis and the Al Aqsa Institute will have to issue a lot more angry rebuttals. An Israel with vast energy endowments may be less coolly received in certain circles than it is today.

In the meantime, we wonder if there was an 11th, hitherto undiscovered commandment on those tablets at Sinai: Thou shalt drill, baby, thou shalt drill.

Photo courtesy Shutterstock.

4th century synagogue with Samson mosaic

Fourth Century Synagogue Discovered in Galilee
A monumental synagogue building dating to the Late Roman period (ca. 4th-5th centuries CE) has been discovered in archaeological excavations at the ancient Jewish village of Huqoq in Israel's Galilee. Excavations have revealed portions of a stunning mosaic floor with a scene depicting Samson placing torches between the tails of foxes (see Judges 15). In another scene, two human faces flank a circular medallion with a Hebrew inscription.
    "Only a small number of ancient synagogue buildings are decorated with mosaics showing biblical scenes, and only two others have scenes with Samson," said Prof. Jodi Magness of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (Israel Antiquities Authority)

Biblical narrative

Main article: Nazirite

Samson's activity takes place during a time when God was punishing the Israelites, by giving them "into the hand of the Philistines".^[12] The Angel of the Lord appears to Manoah, an Israelite from the tribe of Dan, in the city of Zorah, and to his wife, who had been unable to conceive.^[3][6][13] The Angel of the Lord proclaims that the couple will soon have a son who will begin to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines.^[6] The wife believed the Angel of the Lord, but her husband wasn't present, at first, and wanted the heavenly messenger to return, asking that he himself could also receive instruction about the child that was going to be born.

Requirements were set up by the Angel of the Lord that Manoah's wife (as well as the child) were to abstain from all alcoholic beverages, and her promised child was not to shave or cut his hair. He was to be a "Nazirite" from birth. In ancient Israel, those wanting to be especially dedicated to God for a while could take a nazarite vow, which included things like the aforementioned as well as other stipulations.^[3][6][13] After the Angel of the Lord returned, Manoah soon prepared a sacrifice, but the Angel of the Lord would only allow it to be for God, touching his staff to it, miraculously engulfing it in flames. The Angel of the Lord then ascended up into the sky in the fire revealing that it had been God in angelic form, as the Angel of the Lord and "an" angel are two different things. This was such dramatic evidence as to the nature of the Messenger, that Manoah feared for his life, as it has been said that no-one can live after seeing God; however, his wife soon convinced him that if God planned to slay them, he would never have revealed such things to them to begin with. In due time the son, Samson, is born; he is reared according to these provisions.^[6][13]

Rembrandt's painting of Samson andDelilah

When he becomes a young adult, Samson leaves the hills of his people to see the cities of the Philistines. While there, Samson falls in love with a Philistine woman from Timnah whom he decides to marry, overcoming the objections of his parents who do not know that "it is of the Lord".^[6][13][14] The intended marriage is actually part of God's plan to strike at the Philistines.^[6] On the way to ask for the woman's hand in marriage, Samson is attacked by an Asiatic Lion and simply grabs it and rips it apart, as the spirit of God moves upon him, divinely empowering him. This so profoundly affects Samson that he just keeps it to himself as a secret.^[6][7] He continues on to the Philistine's house, winning her hand in marriage. On his way to the wedding, Samson notices that bees have nested in the carcass of the lion and have made honey.^[6][7] He eats a handful of the honey and gives some to his parents.^[6] At the wedding-feast, Samson proposes that he tell a riddle to his thirty groomsmen (all Philistines); if they can solve it, he will give them thirty pieces of fine linen and garments.^[6][13] The riddle ("Out of the eater, something to eat; out of the strong, something sweet") is a veiled account of his second encounter with the lion (at which only he was present).^[6][7] The Philistines are infuriated by the riddle.^[6] The thirty groomsmen tell Samson's new wife that they will burn her and her father's household if she does not discover the answer to the riddle and tell it to them.^[6][7] At the urgent and tearful imploring of his bride, Samson tells her the solution, and she tells it to the thirty groomsmen.^[6][13]

Samson in the Treadmill, byCarl Heinrich Bloch.

Before sunset on the seventh day they said to him,

"What is sweeter than honey?

and what is stronger than a lion?"

Samson said to them,

"If you had not plowed with my heifer,

you would not have solved my riddle."^[9][14]

He flies into a rage and kills thirty Philistines of Ashkelon for their garments, which he gives his thirty groomsmen.^[7][9][13] Still in a rage, he returns to his father's house and found out that his bride was given to another man to be his wife.^[7][9][13] Her father refuses to allow him to see her and wishes to give Samson the younger sister.^[9][13] Samson attaches torches to the tails of three hundred foxes, leaving the panicked beasts to run through the fields of the Philistines, burning all in their wake.^[7][9][13] The Philistines find out why Samson burned their crops and they burn Samson's wife and father-in-law to death.^[8][9][13] In revenge, Samson slaughters many more Philistines, smiting them "hip and thigh".^[9][13]

Delilah cuts Samson's hair, byMaster E. S., 1460/1465

Samson then takes refuge in a cave in the rock of Etam.^[9][13][15] An army of Philistines went up and demanded from 3000 men of Judah to deliver them Samson.^[13][15] With Samson's consent, they tie him with two new ropes and are about to hand him over to the Philistines when he breaks free.^[8][15] Using the jawbone of an ass, he slays one thousand Philistines.^[4][8][15]At the conclusion of Judges 15 it is said that "Samson led Israel for twenty years in the days of the Philistines".^[15]

Later, Samson goes to Gaza, where he stays at a harlot's house.^[9][16] His enemies wait at the gate of the city to ambush him, but he rips the gate up and carries it to "the hill that is in front of Hebron".^[9][16]

He then falls in love with a woman, Delilah, at the Brook of Sorek.^{[8][9][16][17]} The Philistines approach Delilah and induce her (with 1100 silver coins each) to try to find the secret of Samson's strength.^[9][16] Samson, not wanting to reveal the secret, teases her, telling her that he will lose his strength should he be bound with fresh bowstrings.^[9][16] She does so while he sleeps, but when he wakes up he snaps the strings.^[9][16] She persists, and he tells her he can be bound with new ropes. She ties him up with new ropes while he sleeps, and he snaps them, too.^[9][16] She asks again, and he says he can be bound if his locks are woven together.^[9][16] She weaves them together, but he undoes them when he wakes.^[9][16] Eventually Samson tells Delilah that he will lose his strength with the loss of his hair.^{[8][9][16][17]} Delilah calls for a servant to shave Samson's seven locks.^[9][16][17] Since that breaks the Nazirite oath, God leaves him, and Samson is captured by the Philistines,^[4][9][16] who stab out his eyes with their swords. After being blinded, Samson is brought to Gaza, imprisoned, and put to work grinding grain.^[16]

Pushing or pulling?

According to the biblical narrative, Samson died when he grasped two pillars of the Temple of Dagon, and "bowed himself with all his might" (Judges 16:30, KJV). This has been variously interpreted as Samson pushing the pillars apart (top) or pulling them together (bottom).

[edit]Death

One day the Philistine leaders assemble in a temple for a religious sacrifice to Dagon, one of their most important deities, for having delivered Samson into their hands.^[11][16] They summon Samson so that people can gather on the roof to watch.^[11][16][17] Once inside the temple, Samson, his hair having grown long again, asks the servant who is leading him to the temple's central pillars if he may lean against them (referring to the pillars).^[8][11][16]

"Then Samson prayed to God, "remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes" (Judges 16:28)".^[4][11][16] "Samson said, 'Let me die with the Philistines!' (Judges 16:30)^[11][18] He pulled the two pillars together (or possibly pushed them apart^[19]), and down came the temple on the rulers and all the people in it.^{[4][8][11][17][18]} Thus he killed many more as he died than while he lived." (Judges 16:30).^[8][18]

After his death, Samson's family recovers his body from the rubble and buries him near the tomb of his father Manoah.^[11]

The fate of Delilah is never mentioned.^[17]

PM Shamir dead

Former PM Shamir passes away at age 96 in Tel Aviv

By GIL HOFFMAN

06/30/2012 20:56

Netanyahu: Shamir “belonged to the generation of giants that established the State of Israel."

Photo: REUTERS

Former prime minister Yitzhak Shamir died at the age of 96 on Saturday, at the nursing home in which he lived in Tel Aviv, after a long illness.

He will be buried in Jerusalem’s Mount Herzl Cemetery in a state funeral on Monday after his son Yair returns from abroad. The procession will begin at the Knesset, where the public will be invited to pay its respects.

Related:

• From the underground to the political spotlight

Shamir lived in a nursing home since 2004 because of his poor health and Alzheimer’s disease.

He left behind two children and five grandchildren. Shamir’s wife, Shulamit, died last year at the age of 88.

Shamir was the state’s seventh prime minister from 1983 to 1984 and again from 1986 to 1992, the longest-serving premier after David Ben-Gurion. He was known for resisting international pressure to make concessions, yet initiated a peace process in Madrid that led to many diplomatic overtures by his successors.

“The truth is that, in the final analysis, the search for peace has always been a matter of who would tire of the struggle first, and blink,” he wrote in his autobiography.

Shamir also served as foreign minister, Knesset speaker and opposition head, and was an agent in the Mossad. He was among the leaders of the Stern Group (Lehi) in the Jewish underground in Mandatory Palestine.

President Shimon Peres, who fought bitterly with Shamir in the 1980s, issued a statement in which he described Shamir as a courageous fighter both before and after the establishment of the state. Peres said Shamir had left a lasting legacy of bravery.

“He remained true to his beliefs, was a great patriot of his people and a great lover of Israel who served the nation loyally and with great dedication for many years,” Peres said.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Shamir “belonged to the generation of giants that established the State of Israel and fought for the freedom of the Jewish people in its land.”

He said Shamir, whose family died in the Holocaust, fought in the Stern Group and as prime minister to build up the security of the state and ensure its future out of concern for its citizens.

“We lost a great man who was a great leader, who was fundamentally a man of the people,” Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin said.

“To really understand him and his refusal to be enticed by diplomatic overtures that would have weakened Israel, you had to have heard him speak on Holocaust Remembrance Day,” he continued.

“Shamir was a symbol of Israel’s rising from the ashes of the Holocaust to strength and staying power. Out of this developed his personality as an enlightened realist and a stiff ideologue who withstood internal and external pressure and fought to prevent a situation in which the people of Israel will not have their own land and state.”

By contrast, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, who served as a minister in Shamir’s cabinet, praised Shamir for negotiating with the Palestinians, initiating peace talks in Madrid and resisting pressure to attack Iraq after Saddam Hussein fired Scud missiles at Israel during the First Gulf War.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed sorrow at Shamir’s death, saying he acted all his life as an “uncompromising and focused granite rock.”

“In the underground, in the Mossad, in the governments of Israel and as prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir always strove to ensure Israel’s freedom,” Barak said.

The defense minister added that Shamir “asked himself only what is good and right in the struggle for Israel’s security, what is good and right for the people of Israel, and thus he acted.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman referred to Shamir as “a man who had a major role in forming the state.” He said Shamir had served as an example of a man of principle.

“I had the honor of knowing Shamir personally and I will always remember him and his great contribution to the country,” Liberman said.

Opposition leader Shelly Yechimovich called Shamir “a determined prime minister who dedicated his life to his country in his own ideological fashion, with integrity, humility and with a modest way of life worthy of a leader.”

Yechimovich praised Shamir for exercising restraint during the First Gulf War, keeping Israel from unnecessarily becoming entangled in a war with Iraq despite his hawkish beliefs.

Born in Ruzhany, then part of Poland in the Russian Empire and now part of Belarus, with the surname Yezernitzky, Shamir moved to British-ruled Palestine in 1935. Steely and secretive, he ran missions against British and Arab targets for the Irgun, taking his Hebrew name from an alias used to evade police dragnets.

He joined the Stern Group when it split from the Irgun in 1940.

Captured and deported to Eritrea in 1946, the diminutive, beetle-browed Shamir missed much of the fighting that led to the state’s founding two years later. Upon his return, he found himself out of step with the country’s left-leaning political leadership of the day.

The Mossad spy service provided Shamir a back door to power. Recruited in 1955, he clambered up the Mossad’s ranks during shadow wars with Middle East foes and international hunts for Nazi fugitives.

He credited a posting in France with lending some refinement to his style – “the scenery, the way people looked, the food, the wine, Piaf,” he would later say – and prepared him for his 1980 breakthrough as foreign minister for the Likud.

Although known as a hardliner, Shamir nonetheless showed teeth-gritting restraint during the 1991 Gulf War. At the urging of the United States, he held Israel’s fire in the face of Scud missile salvoes by dictator Saddam Hussein rather than retaliate and endanger the US alliance with Arab powers battling to expel Iraq from Kuwait.

His forbearance on that occasion drove home Israel’s consideration for Washington’s Middle East interests.

“I can think of nothing that went more against my grain as a Jew and a Zionist, nothing more opposed to the ideology on which my life has been based, than the decision I took... to ask the people of Israel to accept the burden of restraint,” Shamir said later.

After the war, US president George H.W. Bush called on Israel to accept multi-party peace talks with the Arabs. His administration drove home the demand by postponing $10 billion in US loan guarantees that the Shamir government needed to absorb new immigrants.

Shamir hinted darkly that Bush, the leader of the country’s most important ally, was an anti-Semite but relented on attending the Madrid peace conference, where he became the first Israeli leader to sit opposite Palestinian, Syrian, Jordanian and Lebanese delegates.

The event was short on reconciliation – Shamir spoke of peace with only “self-government” for the Palestinians – but paved the way for the bilateral negotiations pursued by Labor’s Yitzhak Rabin, who rode a wave of Israeli optimism to defeat Shamir in a 1992 election.

Daniel Clinton, Greer Fay Cashman and Reuters contributed to this report.