Yitzhak Shamir, Former Israeli Prime Minister, Dies at 96, Officials Say

[n2doc]

Last edited Sat Jun 30, 2012, 02:40 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: NYT

By JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: June 30, 2012

Yitzhak Shamir, who emerged from the militant wing of Israel’s prestate militia and served as prime minister longer than anyone but David Ben-Gurion, promoting a muscular Zionism and expansive settlement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, died Saturday. He was 96.

His death was announced by the prime minister’s office.

Born in Poland, a survivor of a family wiped out in the Holocaust, Mr. Shamir was part of a group of right-wing Israeli politicians led by Menachem Begin who rose to power in the 1970s as the more left-wing Labor Party declined, viewed as corrupt and disdainful of the public.

Since the late 1990s, as Israelis became more convinced of the need to reduce their hold on lands conquered in the 1967 war, Mr. Shamir’s uncompromising attitude toward the territories and the Palestinians there, once the ruling ideology, has fallen into relative disfavor.


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/01/world/middleeast/yitzhak-shamir-former-prime-minister-of-israel-dies-at-96.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. Requiescat In Pace nt

[azurnoir]

4. fitting creed of sorts

interesting obit too

[Xipe Totec]

6. The lesson of the level

The Level is an instrument used by operative Masons to prove horizontals. It is trite to say that it is a symbol of equality. The Declaration of American Independence proclaims that all men are “Created Equal.” With most of us this is a glittering generality, born of the fact that we are all made of the same dust, share a common humanity and walk on the level of time until the grim democracy of death blots out all distinctions, and the scepter of the prince and the staff of the beggar are laid side by side.

[stonecutter357]

7. I See You've Traveled Some.

[Xipe Totec]

8. Entered, passed, and raised. nt

[azurnoir]

33. sounds John Donne

Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. The great level

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Wow

Didn't even know he was still around with all the happenings around Sharon.

Am not a Likud fan but R.I.P.

[MADem]

3. I honestly thought he'd passed as well.

96--a good run. Four more years would have probably been satisfying if he could have appreciated them.

[Ken Burch]

5. Didn't realize the bloodsoaked old terrorist was still alive.

There was no moral difference between Shamir and anybody in Hamas.

All Shamir ever brought to Israel was death. Life was clearly nothing to him. Peace was nothing to him. He didn't care if his descendants unto their tenth generation were soldiers.

Glad he's not here taking up space anymore.

[rateyes]

9. i must say, to be honest,

I feel the same way you do about him, and Sharon, and Bibi.

[oberliner]

10. And Obama?

He's got a lot more blood on his hands than any of the other people you mentioned.

[Ken Burch]

11. Nobody's thrilled about the killing Obama's done, buddy.

Last edited Sat Jun 30, 2012, 11:00 PM - Edit history (1)

The problem is, because this discussion is hived off in its own little Cone of Silence, it isn't possible to have a holistic discussion of all these issues and the way they interact.

You have no possible reason to defend Shamir, btw. His life's work was just killing. He brought nothing positive to Zionism at all. He was the Kit Carson/George Armstrong Custer/Stonewall Jackson/William Tecumseh Sherman of the War of Independence.

[oberliner]

14. Blast from the past

Since you mentioned people whose life's work was just killing.

"And even if the man is alive(and given the fact that he had kidney trouble and wouldn't have had access to a dialysis machine for years now)we're not GOING to catch him.

Why mortgage the future to avenge the past?

I doubt your friends would like this country to be focused on vengeance to the exclusion of everything else, especially since vengeance is almost certainly impossible.

And if you DID find and kill the man, you'd make him a martyr and cause massive enlistment in his cause. Why on earth would you want THAT?"

Quote is from your post with respect to OBL, 2009.

[Ken Burch]

15. I'm aware of that post, recognized it the moment I saw it.

1) I still DON'T think that Obama was right to kill OBL...we're very lucky it didn't lead to massive blowback against U.S. civilians. I was never one of those crazies in the streets chanting "USA! USA!" the night the deal went down in Abbottabad.

2) All I said was that I was glad Shamir's dead. I only posted that AFTER hearing of his death. And he died peacefully in his bed at a ripe old age. He wasn't shot to bits by Seal Team Six. Until I heard the news of his passing today, I thought he'd been dead for years. I hadn't thought ABOUT the guy for years. Much as I loathed the old bastard, I wasn't demanding that he be killed.

You didn't catch me in a double-standard there at all. I had the same reaction I'd have had if Kit Carson, Stonewall Jackson, or George Armstrong Custer had died in my lifetime.

And again...why would you ever have any positive feelings for Shamir? His life was nothing but a life of killing. He was no different than OBL. Or Hamas.

[rateyes]

12. i dont know about more. I am not happy with the continuation of Bush wars, but

Obama was not the literal butcher Sharon was.

[oberliner]

13. Definitely more - not even close

Do you have any idea the number of people that have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan under Obama's watch?

There is no comparison.

[rateyes]

16. yes, there is a comparison.

Obama didnt start those wars and had to bring them to a close in the best way he could. His intentions, unlike the Butcher of Sabra And Shatila, was not the extermination of a whole people.

[oberliner]

19. The extermination of a whole people?

OK - sorry I thought we were having an actual conversation based on reality.

[Ken Burch]

20. OK, rateyes did go too far on that one...

but Shamir's involvement in the killing of Bernadotte did have the effect of exterminating any hope for peace between Israel and Palestine for decades to come...you can't deny that.

[rateyes]

21. imo, Sharon is a butcher for allowing those massacres.

[Ken Burch]

25. If nothing else Sharon had to have known

that the ONLY possible reason the Falangist militias could possibly have insisted on going into Sabra and Shatila was to stage a massacre. They entered those camps immediately after the assassination of Bashir Gemayel, the Falangist president-elect...Shamir, being a sabra himself, had to have known they'd want blood vengeance. He could have stopped it, but clearly didn't feel the lives of innocent Palestinian civilians were of any value.

Hezbollah must have gained thousands of recruits as a result of the Sabra and Shatila massacres and the IDF's complicity in them.

[rateyes]

22. maybe i should have used the words

massacres of entire villages. He is complicit in that.

[Ken Burch]

17. Nothing Obama did compares to the murder of Count Bernadotte.

That murder helped make peace impossible for six decades. It had NO positive effects. Nothing is better for Israel because Bernadotte's proposals were not adopted. And nothing Bernadotte proposed was so terrible that it could possibly have justified killing the man.

In a sense, then, every death in the conflict since 1948 is on the head of Shamir and his fascist colleagues in the Irgun and Lehi.

[hack89]

23. There is no reason to believe Bernadotte's proposals would have been adopted

his assassination was a crime and a tragedy but his proposals were not in Israel's best interest so there is no reason to believe that they would have ever been adopted.

[Ken Burch]

24. Their acceptance by both sides would have meant Arab and Palestinian recognition of Israel

AND a Palestinian state living with Israel next door. Neither was worth sacrificing just to get Israeli control of the Negev, an area that Israeli Jews have refused to live in for sixty years now(and will likely go on refusing to live in). Furthermore, Bernadotte's proposal would have prevented the nineteen-year period in which Jews were denied access to the holy sites in East Jerusalem.

It was the best deal Israel could possibly have got at the time..possibly the best deal it ever COULD get...everything is worse for that country because that proposal was not accepted.

[hack89]

32. You assume that either side wanted two seperate states after the 1948 war.

Last edited Sun Jul 1, 2012, 01:52 PM - Edit history (1)

the Arabs did not want a Jewish state - the 1948 war and all the subsequent wars and violence attest to that. The West Bank and Gaza were not in Israeli hands for 19 years yet Jordan and Egypt made no effort whatsoever to establish any degree of Palestinian autonomy, much less a Palestinian state.

On the Israeli side, after the 1948 war the Israelis had little reason to trust the Arabs. Note also that Bernadotte's proposals included the right of return. For good reason it was just as unacceptable then as it is now.

[Ken Burch]

38. Excuse me...but it's canon on the "pro-Israel" side

that Israel accepted the UN partition(which, by definition meant accepting a Palestinian state)and the Palestinians didn't.

If you're saying that the Israelis weren't accepting that, you've admitted that they weren't innocent victims in 1948 and you've taken away most of the rationale for the attacks on what the Arab countries did. You've essentially said that the Arab military involvement was a legitimate act to defend the Palestinians from dispossession.

Are you really sure you want to be saying that?

Besides, in 1948, the right of return wouldn't have been anywhere near as disruptive as full RoR would be now.

[hack89]

43. They did. The Arabs declaring war changed everything

because it made it very clear that a two party state was impossible in 1949. There were certainly opportunities to rebuild trust and establish two states after the 48 war but in the immediate aftermath of an attempted war of genocide, the notion that Israel was going to sit down to discuss a Palestinian state is nonsense. And lets not forget that a Palestinian state was not on the agenda of the Arab countries either - had they won all of Palestine would have simply been divided between the victors - just like Jordan taking the West Bank and Egypt Gaza. The Palestinians may have accepted a Palestinian state but they were irrelevant to the process.

[Malikshah]

39. Uh....regardless of who would or would not have accepted the proposal....the point is that an

official seeking a resolution was treacherously assassinated, a murder given the go ahead by, among others, Shamir.

[hack89]

42. I understand that

I just question that had he lived that the course of events would have significantly changed.

[Malikshah]

44. And if my grandmother had testicles, I'd not be here.

What ifs are not terribly relevant to this issue. We will never know as it did not happen. Life is too dynamic to ignore the variables of fate.

[hack89]

45. The poster I was replying to seems to think it was very relevent.

That murder helped make peace impossible for six decades.

[oberliner]

27. How many civilians have been killed by drone strikes ordered by Obama?

Tallies from leading Pakistani media organizations report that as many as eighteen hundred civilians and mid- and low-level fighters have been killed in attacks since Obama took office.

http://www.cjr.org/feature/covering_obamas_secret_war.php?page=all

As U.S. Escalates Pakistan Drone Strikes, Expansive "Kill List" Stirs Fears of Worse Civilian Toll

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/6/5/as_us_escalates_pakistan_drone_strikes

[Ken Burch]

18. And when Obama dies of old age, the same things will be said about him.

He's being backed this year because there's no real alternative...that's not the same thing as giving the guy a real pass on this shit.

And it's not like Shamir was murdered in the prime of life. He died peacefully in bed at 96(as you've seen from other posts, most DU'ers and I'd say most Americans thought the guy had kicked years ago). Nobody's comments in this thread can possibly do the man any harm...and calling out Shamir for his acts is not exactly a threat to Israeli security.

Can you find ANYTHING to defend in anything the man did? From what I've read of your posts over the years, if you moved to Israel you'd never have voted for Shamir's party or anything remotely like it.

[oberliner]

28. Doubtful

I can't even believe that you would think Obama's passing would be spoken about in those terms here.

[Violet_Crumble]

29. Of course not. Obama is LW, unlike Shamir who was an extreme RW terrorist...

This whole tallyboard thing about who's killed more people than who could really backfire badly if applied to certain situations, btw. I don't care who killed more people. The OP's about Shamir, and he's not anyone to be mourned by LWers, imo...

[oberliner]

31. I completely agree with you

I cannot believe that the poster above would suggest that Obama would be spoken about the same way as Shamir.

[Ken Burch]

37. OK...I shouldn't have to say it, but I'm going to.

NOBODY is calling out Shamir for the reason you're implying.

The issue is that Shamir was a brutal, unredeemable man. That's the ONLY issue. And you damn well know it. It has nothing to do with anything else.

[Ken Burch]

30. The judgment of people making pragmatic decisions in an election year

can't be confused with the long-term opinions people may hold.

Most U.S. liberals, from what I've seen, hold MUCH more critical opinions about what John F. Kennedy did on foreign policy than they would have at the time of his assassination. And that change started only a few years later(as shown by the fact that Bobby ran for president in '68 on a foreign policy program that was severely critical of the assumptions behind JFK's policies).

So, no, it's not true that people are being too hard on Shamir and giving Obama a pass. It's just that Obama has some redeeming values and Shamir had none. Shamir represents a school of Zionist thought that has been totally destructive for Israel. Don't waste your time defending a man who deserves no defense.

[Malikshah]

34. K&R...if anything to cleanse the palate from the obfuscation (e.g. Obama-Shamir link) that abounds..

Shamir had a storied life and career.
In my opinion, he did not bring anything to the table except for bigotry, lies, and death. A terrorist, master of delaying tactics in negotiation, and a professional victim on the world stage, Shamir is not someone that rational adults should ever think to idolize or respect.

His actions during the Mandate period should have found him with a life-long prison sentence.
His actions as PM should have found him shunned from the world stage.

He did more to set back progress in the region than many accept. Netanyahu is doing his damnedest to live up to the legacy of his old boss. Is that something to be lauded? I think not.

To my mind, his length existence on this planet, along with Sharon, shows to me that there is no merciful God.

[n2doc]

35. As well as Dick Cheney, W, and Kissinger

To name just a few. And I could name just as many who had too short lives working on the good side.

[Ken Burch]

36. Almost everybody on the good side, really.

other than maybe Gandhi, Pete Seeger, and Dorothy Day.

[oberliner]

40. White House offers condolences on death of former Israeli PM Shamir

The White House offered condolences Saturday after the death of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir at 96.

“Yitzhak Shamir dedicated his life to the State of Israel. From his days working for Israel's independence to his service as Prime Minister, he strengthened Israel's security and advanced the partnership between the United States and Israel,” said a statement from the White House press secretary. “Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and the people of Israel."

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affairs/middle-east-north-africa/235777-white-house-offers-condolences-on-death-of-former-israeli-pm-shamir

[Ken Burch]

41. Well, they do that anytime a former head of government dies somewhere

unless it's one of our designated "enemies".

No biggie.

Please tell me you don't actually admire Shamir, Obie. You're a better person than that.

[Craig_Langford]

46. I didn't agree with everything he did

But then again nobody's perfect and I'm not the kind of person to speak ill of the dead. May he rest in peace

Z"L